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TIMELY THOUGHTS FOR RELIGIOUS 
THINKERS. 


A SERIES OF PAPERS, 


JAMES MARTINEAU. 

(i 



BOSTON: 

AMERICAN UNITARIAN ASSOCIATION. 
1 875. 




CONTENTS 


Pags 

Introductory Thoughts, from Mr. Martineau’s Writings v 

Distinctive Types of Christianity.1 

Christianity without Priest and without Ritual . 35 

Inconsistency of the Scheme of Vicarious Redemption 83 

Mediatorial Religion.147 

Five Points of Christian Faith.177 

Creed and Heresies of Early Christianity . . 201 

The Creed of Christendom.266 

The Ethics of Christendom ...... 299 

The Restoration of Belief.356 

One Gospel in Many Dialects.’ 399 

St. Paul and his Modern Students.414 

Sin : What it is, What it is not.466 

The Duties of Christians in an Age of Controversy 478 















* 


' 

■ 












■ 






. 










... 










tji j» 


* ■: , 








** r '' f ; : *• r 



INTRODUCTORY THOUGHTS, 


FKOM 


MR. MARTINEAU’S WRITINGS. 



INTRODUCTION. 


The American Unitarian Association in 1835 re¬ 
printed from the English edition, among their Tracts, 
a Sermon on u The Existing State of Theology as an 
Intellectual Pursuit and of Religion as a Moral In¬ 
fluence.” Its rare merits elicited great praise. Its 
author was the Rev. James Martineau, then a settled 
minister in Liverpool. Since that time, his occasional 
publications from year to year have been winning a 
wider audience, and awakening a deeper admiration. 
The history of his mind has been a broadening track 
of light. And now the Association feel that they 
cannot do a greater favor to the reading public, or 
better aid that cause of Liberal Christianity whose 
servants they are, than by printing a collection of the 
later writings of this gifted man, whom they first in¬ 
troduced to American Unitarians a quarter of a cen¬ 
tury ago. 

The list of works prefixed to the article here entitled 
“ Distinctive Types of Christianity,” as it appeared 
in the Westminster Review, and the opening sentence 
referring to them, have been accidentally omitted. 
Two or three of the papers belong to the author’s 
earlier years, but are inserted here equally on account 



viii 


INTRODUCTION. 


of their eminent ability, their special timeliness, and 
their striking adaptation to the general purpose of the 
work ; namely, to throw light on the true nature of 
Christianity. They will also be new to most of those 
whom they now reach. The last paper in the volume 
is one of the first its writer published, in his compara¬ 
tive youth. We shall be disappointed if the benignant 
wisdom and moral fidelity of its catholic lessons do not 
secure a sympathetic response in many a quarter once 
closed against such appeals. 

In selecting from Mr. Martineau’s numerous inval¬ 
uable articles, not already published in book-form, the 
contents of the present work, the rule has not been so 
much to choose the ablest productions, as to take those 
best fitted to meet the wants of the time, by diffusing 
among ministers, students of divinity, and the culti¬ 
vated laity a knowledge of the most advanced theologi¬ 
cal and religious thought yet attained. We regret 
that the necessary limits of the volume exclude several 
of the author’s most instructive and inspiring essays; 
particularly the magnificent one in the National Re¬ 
view upon “ Newman, Coleridge, and Carlyle ” ; also 
the one upon “ Lessing as a Theologian.” 

We have called this volume “Studies of Christian¬ 
ity,” simply as a convenient indication of the general 
character of its contents. In justice to the author, it 
should be borne in mind that the separate papers were 
prepared to meet various occasions, without a suspi¬ 
cion that they would ever be brought together to form 
a book. Of course they do not express his complete 
views of the mighty subject which they fragmentarily 
treat. The relative order and rank of his convictions, 
the interpretation of Christianity from its inner side, 
appear much better in his “ Endeavors after the Chris- 


INTRODUCTION. 


IX 


tian Life,”—by far the richest and noblest series of 
sermons in the English language. Still, a kind of 
unity pervades the different pieces composing this col¬ 
lection. One Christ-like strain of sentiment breathes 
through them all. The same consecrating fealty to 
truth presides over them all. The same grand outline 
of principles and unvarying standard of judgment are 
constantly evident. The same marvellous acumen, 
breadth of learning, and exquisite culture, everywhere 
appear. Each article is more or less directly an illus¬ 
tration of Christianity, as something moral, spiritual, 
vital, dynamic, to be practically assimilated by the soul, 
in distinction from the common exposition of it, as 
something sacerdotal, dogmatic, formal, forensic, once 
enacted and now to be mimetically observed. The 
energetic patience of labor, the detersive intellect, the 
unalloyed devoutness of spirit, the telescopic range both 
of faculty and equipment, revealed even in these way- 
side products, awaken in us an unappeasable desire for 
a more purposed and systematic work from the same 
mind, now in its fullest maturity. In the mean time 
we will express our grateful appreciation of the con¬ 
tributions already furnished, by giving them further 
circulation, assured that no truly pious and intelligent 
person, free from bigotry and shackles, can peruse them 
without receiving equal measures of delight and profit. 

Mr. Martineau is so thoroughly acquainted with the 
processes and results of spiritual experience, with the 
sciences of nature, and with the whole realm of met¬ 
aphysical philosophy, and his own wealthy faculties 
are so tenacious in their activity and freshness, that 
every subject he touches receives novelty, light, and 
ornament. He is emphatically a teacher for the 
teachers, — a greater guide and master for the common 


X 


INTRODUCTION. 


guides and masters. Traversing the whole domain of 
human contemplation with the defining lines of analy¬ 
sis, clothing the severe materials of science with the 
colors of aesthetic art, he sheds on every theme the illu¬ 
mination of intellectual genius, and transfuses every 
thought with the distinctive sentiments of piety. Thus 
is afforded that rarest of all spectacles,—and the one 
now most needed by the cultivated religious world, — 
of a man who is greatly endowed at once as philoso¬ 
pher, poet, and Christian, and who with simultaneous 
earnestness in each capacity is devoted, by the whole 
labors of his life, to the instruction of mankind. 

For these reasons, we feel it a duty to attract as 
much attention as possible to Mr. Mar tine au’s past 
and expected publications. The peerless intelligence, 
the bracing fidelity, the essential nobleness and cath¬ 
olicity, the tender beauty and reverence, of his utter¬ 
ances, his consummate mastery of the great topics he 
handles, seem to us fitted in a solitary degree to meet 
the highest wants of the age, — to do divine service in 
the conflict of scepticism, sensuality, and decay against 
all that is truest and purest in the religious faith and 
moral life of Christendom. Therefore, to persons who, 
unacquainted with the author’s previous works, may 
read the papers here collected, we would recommend 
as the best books for educated and earnest Christian 
thinkers, Mr. Martineau’s “ Rationale of Religious In¬ 
quiry,” the volume of his “ Miscellanies ” edited by 
the Rev. T. S. King, and the two series of “ Endeav¬ 
ors after the Christian Life ” recently republished in 
one volume by Messrs. Munroe and Company. 

We shall make up the rest of this introductory paper 
by quoting from some of Mr. Martineau’s articles, not 
generally accessible, a few specimens of those thoughts 


INTRODUCTION. 


xi 


which, if freely received in these times of theological 
doubt and turmoil, would lead many a religious think¬ 
er towards the truth and peace he covets. 

How clearly the following passage shows the true 

RELATION BETWEEN NATURAL AND REVEALED RELIGION. 

The contempt with which it is the frequent practice of 
divines to treat the grounds of natural religion, betrays an 
ignorance both of the true office of revelation and of the true 
wants of the human heart. It cannot be justified, except on 
the supposition that there is some contradiction between the 
teachings of creation and those of Christ, with some decided 
preponderance of proof in favor of the latter. Even if the 
Gospel furnished a series of perfectly new truths, of which 
nature had been profoundly silent, it would be neither reason¬ 
able nor safe to fix exclusive attention on these recent and his¬ 
torical acquisitions, and prohibit all reference to those elder 
oracles of God, by which his Spirit, enshrined in the glories 
of his universe, taught the fathers of our race. And if it be 
the function of Christianity not to administer truth entirely 
new, but to corroborate by fresh evidence, and invest with 
new beauty, and publish to the millions with a voice of power, 
a faith latent already in the hearts of many, and scattered 
through the speculations of the wise and noble few, — to 
erect into realities the dreams which had visited a half-in¬ 
spired philosophy, interpreting the life and lot of man; — 
then there is a relation between the religion of nature and 
that of Christ, — a relation of original and supplement,— 
which renders the one essential to the apprehension of the 
other. Revelation, you say, has given us the clew by which 
to thread the labyrinth of creation, and extricate ourselves 
from its passages of mystery and gloom. Be it so; still, 
there , in the scene thus cleared of its perplexity, must our 
worship be paid, and the manifestations of Deity be sought. 
If the use of revelation be to explain the perplexities of Prov- 


xii 


INTRODUCTION. 


idence and life, it would be a strange use to make of the ex¬ 
planation were we to turn away from the thing explained. 
We hold the key of heaven in our hands. What folly to be 
for ever extolling and venerating it, whilst we prohibit all ap¬ 
proach to the temple whose gates it is destined to unlock. 

One would search long to find a finer illustration 
than is here given of the real 

NATURE OF DEVOTION. 

In Devotion there is this great peculiarity, — that it is nei¬ 
ther the work nor the play of our nature, but is something 
higher than either, — more ideal than the one, more real than 
the other. All human activities besides are one of these two 
things, — either the mere aim at an external end, or the mere 
outcome of an inner feeling. On the one hand, we plough 
and sow, we build and navigate, that we may win the adorn¬ 
ments and securities of life ; on the other hand, we sing and 
dance, we carve and paint, that we may put forth the pressure 
of harmony and joy and beauty breaking from within. Me¬ 
chanical Toil terminates in a solid product; graceful Art is 
content with simple expression; but Religion is degraded 
when it is reduced to either character. It is not a labor of 
utility; and he who looks to it as a means of safety, to ingra¬ 
tiate himself with an awful God, and bespeak an interest in a 
hidden Future, is an utter stranger to its essence; his habits 
and words may be cast in its mould, but the spark of its life 
is not kindled in his heart. When fed by the fuel of pru¬ 
dence, the fire is all spent in fusing it into form; and the 
finished product is a cold and metal mimicry, that neither 
moves nor glows. Nor is Religion a simple gesture of pas¬ 
sion ; and to class it with mere natural language, to treat it 
as the rhythmical delirium of the soul working off an irre¬ 
pressible enthusiasm, is to empty it of its real meaning and 
contents, and sink it from a divine attraction to a human 
excitement. The postures and movements and tones which 


INTRODUCTION. 


xiii 


simply manifest the impassioned mind are content to go off 
into space, and pass away; they direct themselves nowhither; 
they have no more object than a convulsion; they ask only 
leave to be the last shape of a feeling that must have way; 
and be the inspiration what it may, they close and consum¬ 
mate its history. But he who prays is at the beginning of 
aspiration, not at the evaporating end of impulse; he is 
drawn, not driven; he is not painting himself upon vacancy, 
but is surrendering himself to a Presence real and everlast¬ 
ing. If he flings out his arms, it is not in blind paroxysm, 
but that he may embrace and be embraced; if he cries aloud, 
it is that he may be heard; if he makes melody of the silent 
heart, it is no soliloquy flung into emptiness, but the low- 
breathing love of spirit to Spirit. Devotion is not the play 
even of the highest faculties, but their deep earnest. It is no 
doubt the culminating point of reverence; but reverence is 
impossible without an object, and could never culminate at 
all, or pass into the Infinite, unless its object did so too. In 
every case we find that the faculties and susceptibilities of a ■ 
being tell true, and are the exact measure of the outer life it 
has to live; and just as many and as large proportions as it 
has, to just so many and so great objects does it stand relat¬ 
ed ; so that from the axis of its nature you may always draw 
the curve of its existence. Human worship, therefore, turn¬ 
ing to the living God as the infant’s eye to light, is itself a 
witness to Him whom it feels after and adores; it is “ the 
image and shadow of heavenly things,” the parallel cham¬ 
ber in our nature with that Holy of Holies whither its incense 
ever ascends. 

In a similar strain is this argument tb show that 

DEVOTION IS NOT A MISTAKE. 

Be assured, all visible greatness of mind grows in looking 
at an invisible that is greater. And since it is inconceivable 
that what is most sublime in humanity should spring from vis- 

b 


XIV 


INTRODUCTION. 


ion of a thing that is not, that what is most real and com¬ 
manding with us should come of stretching the soul into the 
unreal and empty, that historic durability should be the gift 
of spectral fancies, we must hold these devout natures to be 
at one with everlasting Fact, — to feel truly that the august 
forms of Justice and Holiness are at home in heaven, the ob¬ 
ject there of clearer insight and more perfect veneration. 
There are those wdio please themselves with the idea that the 
world will outgrow its habits of worship; that the newspaper 
will supersede the preacher and prophet; that the apprehen¬ 
sion of scientific laws will replace the fervor of moral inspi¬ 
rations ; that this sphere of being will then be perfectly 
administered wdien no reference to another distracts attention. 
But, for my own part, I am persuaded, that life would soon 
become intolerable on earth, were it copied from nothing in 
the heavens; that its deeper affections would pine away and 
its lights of purest thought grow pale, if it lay shrouded in no 
Holy Spirit, but only in the wilderness of space. The most 
sagacious secular voice leaves, after all, a chord untouched in 
the human heart: listening too long to its didactic monotone, 
we begin to sigh for the rich music of hope and faith. The 
dry glare of noonday knowledge hurts the eye by plying it 
for use and denying it beauty; and we long to be screened 
behind a cloud or two of moisture and of mystery, that shall 
mellow the glory and cool the air. Never can the world be 
less to us, than when we make it all in all. 

Our author makes a striking reply to the common 
assertion that 

“THEOLOGY IS NOT A PROGRESSIVE SCIENCE.” 

It may, however, be retrogressive; and it is sure to repay 
flippant neglect by lending its empty space to mean delusions. 
To its great problems some answer will always be attempted; 
and there is much to choose between the solutions, however 
imperfect, found by reverential wisdom, and the degrading 


INTRODUCTION. 


XV 


falsehoods tendered in reply by the indifferent and superficial. 
Even in their failures, there is a vast difference between the 
explorings of the seeing and the blind. We deny, however, 
that Christian theology can assume any aspect of failure, 
except to those who use a false measure of success. It is 
not in the nature of religion, of poetry, of art, to exhibit the 
kind of progress that belongs to physical science. They dif¬ 
fer from it in seeking, not the 'phenomena of the universe, but 
its essence , — not its laws of change, but its eternal meanings, 
— not outward nature, in short, except as expressive of the in¬ 
ner thought of God; and being thus intent upon the enduring 
spirit and very ground of things, they cannot grow by nu¬ 
merical accretion of facts and exacter registration of succes¬ 
sions. They are the product, not of the patient sense and 
comparing intelligence which are always at hand, but of a 
deeper and finer insight, changing with the atmosphere of the 
affections and will. Instead of looking, therefore, for perpet¬ 
ual advance of discovery in theology, we should naturally 
expect an ebb and flow of light, answering to the moral con¬ 
dition of men’s minds ; and may be content if the divine 
truth, lost in the dulness of a material age, clears itself into 
fresh forms with the returning breath of a better time. 

Most readers will find suggestions of great freshness 
in the passage next cited: — 

THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY. 

To lose sight of this principle in estimating Christianity, 
and to insist on judging it, not by its matured character in 
Christendom, not by the unconscious spirit of its founders, 
but by their personal views and purposes, is to overlook the 
divine in it in order to fasten on the human; to seek the 
winged creature of the ,air in the throbbing chrysalis ; and 
is like judging the place of the Hebrews in history by the 
court and the proverbs of Solomon, or the value of Puritan¬ 
ism by the sermon of a hill-preacher before the civil war. 


XVI 


INTRODUCTION. 


The primitive Christianity was certainly different from that 
of other ages; hut there is no reason for believing that it 
was better. The representation often made of the early 
Church, as having only truth, and feeling only love, and liv¬ 
ing in simple sanctity, is contradicted by every page of the 
Christian records. The Epistles are entirely occupied in 
driving back guilt and passion, or in correcting errors of be¬ 
lief; nor is it always possible to approve of the temper in 
which they perform the one task, or to assent to the methods 
by which they attempt the other. Principles and affections 
were indeed secreted in the heart of the first disciples, which 
were to have a great future, and to become the highest truth 
of the w r orld. But it was precisely of these that they rarely 
thought at all. The Apostles themselves speak slightingly of 
them, as baby’s food; and the great faith in God, the need of 
repentant purity of heart, with the trust in immortality, — 
the very doctrines which we should name as the permanent 
essence of Christian faith, — are expressly declared by them 
to be the childish rudiments of belief, on which the attention 
of the grown Christian will disdain to dwell. And what did 
they prefer to these sublime truths, as the nutriment of their 
life and the pride of their wisdom ? Allegories about Isaac 
and Ishmael, parallels between Christ and Melcliisedec, new 
readings of history and prophecy to suit the events in Pales¬ 
tine, and a constant outlook for the end of all things. These 
were the grand topics on which their minds eagerly worked, 
and on which they labored to construct a consistent theory. 
These give the form to their doctrine, the matter to their 
spirit. These are what you will get, if you go indiscrim¬ 
inately to their writings for a creed : and these are no more 
Christianity than the pretensions of Hildebrand or the visions 
of Swedenborg. The true religion lies elsewhere, just in the 
things that were ever present with them, but never esteemed. 
Just as your friend may spend his anxiety on his station, his 
usefulness, his appearance and repute, and fear lest he should 
show nothing deserving your regard, while all the time you 
love him for the pure graces, the native wild-flowers, pf his 


INTRODUCTION. 


XY11 


heart; so do the choicest servants of God ever think one 
thing of themselves, while they are dear to him and revered 
by us for quite another. “ The weak things ” in the Church 
not less than in “ the world hath he chosen to confound the 
mighty; the simple, to strike dumb the wise; and things that 
are not, to supersede the things that are.” 

In rude ages, and amid feudal customs, it has perhaps been 
no unhappy thing that this image of servitude has been trans¬ 
mitted into the conceptions of faith: it may have touched 
with some sanctity an inevitable submission, and mingled a 
sentiment of loyalty with religion. But the external relation 
of serf and lord is no type of the internal relation of spirit 
to spirit, which alone constitutes religion to us. To God 
himself, with all his infinitude, we are not slaves ; we are not 
his property, but his children ; he regards us, not as things, 
but as persons ; he does not so much command us, as appeal 
to us; and in our obedience, it is not his bidding that we 
serve, but that divine Law of Right of which he makes us 
conscious as the rule of His nature only more perfectly than 
of ours. To obey him as slaves, in fear, and with an eye 
upon his power, is, with all our punctuality and anxiety, sim¬ 
ply and entirely to disobey him ; nor is anything precious in 
his sight, except the free consent of heart with which we 
apprehend what is holy to his thought and embrace what is 
in harmony with his perfection. Still less can we be slaves 
to Christ, who is no autocrat to us, but our freely followed 
leader towards God; the guide of our pilgrim troop in quest 
of a holy land ; who gives us no law from the mandates of 
his will, but only interprets for us, and makes burn within 
us, in characters of fire, the law of our own hearts; who has 
no power over us, except through the affections he awakens 
and the aspirations he sets upon the watch. We have emerged 
from the Religion of Law, whose only sentiment is that of 
obedience to sovereignty ; we have passed from the religion of 
Salvation, whose life consists in gratitude to a Deliverer ; and 
we are capable only of a religion of reverence, which bows 
before the authority of Goodness. And in the infinite ranks 
b * 


xviii 


INTRODUCTION. 


of excellence, from the highest to the lowest, there are no 
lords and slaves; the dependence is ever that of internal 
charm, not of external bond ; the authority is but represented 
and impersonated in another and a better soul, but has its 
living seat within our own ; and in this true and elevating 
worship, the more we are disposed of by another, the more 
do we feel that we are our own. This is a relation which 
the political terms of the expected theocracy are ill adapted 
to express ; and if we have required many centuries to grope 
our way to this clearest glory of religion, to disengage it 
from the impure admixture of servile fear and revolting pre¬ 
sumption ; if it has taken long for us to melt away in our 
imagination the images of thrones and tribunals, of prize- 
givings and prisons, of a police and assizes of the universe; 
if only at the eleventh hour of our faith, the cloud has passed 
away, and shown us the true angel-ladder that springs from 
earth to heaven, the pure climax of souls whereon each be¬ 
low looks up and rises, yet each above bends down and helps ; 
— the discovery which brings such peace and freedom to the 
heart, has been delayed by the mistaken identification of the 
entire creed of the first age with the essence of Christianity. 
Now that God has shown us so much more, has tried the 
divine seed of the Gospel on so various a soil of history, and 
enabled us to distinguish its fairest blossoms and its choicest 
fruits, a much larger meaning than was possible at first must 
be given to the purpose of his revelation. Even to Paul, 
Christ was mainly the great representative of a theocratic 
idea; and was in no other sense an object of spiritual belief, 
than that he was not on earth and mortal, but in heaven and 
immortal. That faith in Christ, which then prominently 
denoted belief in his appointed return, and allegiance to him 
as God’s viceroy in this world, is now transferred into quite 
a different thing. It is altogether a moral and affectionate 
sentiment: an acknowledgment of him as the highest imper¬ 
sonation of divine excellence and inspired insight yet given 
to the world; a trust in him as the only realized type of per¬ 
fection that can mediate for us between ourselves and God ; 


INTRODUCTION. 


XIX 


a faithfulness to him, as making us conscious of what we are 
and what God and our conscience would have us to be. It is 
vain to pretend that revelation is a fixed and stereotyped 
thing. It was born, as the divinest things must be, among 
human conditions ; and into it ever since human conditions 
have perpetually flowed. The elements of Hebrew thought 
surrounded the sacred centre at first, and have been errone¬ 
ously identified with it by all Unitarian churches in every 
age. The Hellenic intellect afterwards streamed towards the 
fresh point of life and faith, and gathered around it the met¬ 
aphysical system of Trinitarian dogma in which orthodox 
communions of all times have, with parallel error, sought the 
essence of the Gospel. The true principle of the religion has 
been secreted in both , and consisted in neither: it has lain 
unnoticed in the midst, in the silent chamber of the heart, 
around which the clamor of the disputatious intellect whirls 
without entrance. The agency of Christ’s mind as the ex¬ 
pression of God’s moral nature and providence, and as the 
realized ideal of beauty and excellence, — this is the power 
of God and the wisdom of God, which has made vain the 
counsels of the world, and baffled the foolishness of the 
Church. This is the Gospel’s centre of stability, — “ Jesus 
Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.” 

Few persons can be insensible to the sublimity of 
this expression upon the relation between 

CHRIST, NATURE, PROVIDENCE, AND GOD. 

In conclusion, then, I revert, with freshened persuasion, to 
the statement with which I commenced. Jesus Christ of 
Nazareth, God hath presented to us simply in his inspired 
humanity. Him we accept, not indeed as very God, but as 
the true image of God, commissioned to show what no writ¬ 
ten doctrinal record could declare, the entire moral perfections 
of Deity. We accept, not indeed his body, not the strug¬ 
gles of his sensitive nature, not the travail of his soul, but 


XX 


INTRODUCTION. 


his purity, his tenderness, his absolute devotion to the great 
idea of right, his patient and compassionate warfare against 
misery and guilt, as the most distinct and beautiful expres¬ 
sion of the Divine mind. The peculiar office of Christ is to 
supply a new moral image of Providence; and everything, 
therefore, except the moral complexion of his mind, we leave 
behind as human and historical merely, and apply to no re¬ 
ligious use. I have already stated in what way nature and 
the Gospel combine to bring before us the great object of our 
trust and worship. The universe gives us the scale of God, 
and Christ, his Spirit. We climb to the infinitude of his 
nature by the awful pathway of the stars, where whole forests 
of worlds silently quiver here and there, like a small leaf of 
light. We dive into his eternity, through the ocean waves 
of time, that roll and solemnly break on the imagination, as 
we trace the wrecks of departed things upon our present 
globe. The scope of his intellect, and the majesty of his 
rule, are seen in the tranquil order and everlasting silence 
that reign through the fields of his volition. And the spirit 
that animates the whole is like that of the Prophet of Naza¬ 
reth ; the thoughts that fly upon the swift light throughout 
creation, charged with fates unnumbered, are like the healing 
mercies of One that passed no sorrow by. The government 
of this world, its mysterious allotments of good and ill, its 
successions of birth and death, its hopes of progress and of 
peace, each life of individual or nation, is under the adminis¬ 
tration of One, of whose rectitude and benevolence, whose 
sympathy with all the holiest aspirations of our virtue and 
our love, Christ is the appointed emblem. A faith that 
spreads around and within the mind a Deity thus sublime 
and holy, feeds the light of every pure affection, and presses 
with omnipotent power on the conscience; and our only 
prayer is, that we may walk as children of such light. 

It seems as if no one capable of understanding could 
resist the convincing cogency of the following exhi¬ 
bition of 


INTRODUCTION. 


xxi 


THE IDEA OF VICARIOUS JUSTICE. 

* It is only natural that the parable of the Prodigal Son 
should be no favorite with those who deny the unconditional 
mercy of God. The place which this divine tale occupies in 
the Unitarian theology appears to be filled, in the orthodox 
scheme, by the story of Zaleucus, king of the Locrians ; 
which has been appealed to in the present controversy by 
both the lecturers on the Atonement, and seems to be the 
only endurable illustration presented, even by Pagan history, 
of the execution of vicarious punishment. This monarch 
had passed a law condemning adulterers to the loss of both 
eyes. His own son was convicted of the crime; and, to sat¬ 
isfy at once the claims of law and of clemency, the royal 
parent “ commanded one of his own eyes to be pulled out, and 
one of his son’s.” Is it too bold a heresy to confess that 
there seems to me something heathenish in this example, and 
that, as an exponent of the Divine character, I more willingly 
revere the Father of the prodigal than the father of the adul¬ 
terer ? 

Without entering, however, into any comparison between 
the Locrian and the Galilean parable, I would observe, that 
the vicarious theory receives no illustration from this frag¬ 
ment of ancient history. There is no analogy between the 
cases, except in the violation of truth and wisdom which both 
exhibit; and whatever we are instructed to admire in Za¬ 
leucus, will be found on close inspection to be absent from the 
orthodox representation of God. We pity the Grecian king, 
who had made a law without foresight of its application, and 
so sympathize with his desire to evade it, that any quibble 
which legal ingenuity can devise for this purpose passes with 
slight condemnation; casuistry refuses to be severe with a 
man implicated in such a difficulty. But the Creator and 
Legislator of the human race, having perfect knowledge of 
the future, can never be surprised into a similar perplexity; 
or ever pass a law at one time which at another he desires to 


xxii 


INTRODUCTION. 


evade. Even were it so, there would seem to be less that is 
unworthy of his moral perfection in saying plainly, with the 
ancient Hebrews, that he “ repented of the evil he thought 
to do,” and said, “ It shall not be, ” than in ascribing to him a 
device for preserving consistency, in which no one capable of 
appreciating veracity can pretend to discern any sincere ful¬ 
filment of the law. However barbarous the idea of Divine 
“ repentance,” it is at least ingenuous. Nor does this incident 
of Zaleucus and his son present any parallel to the alleged 
relation between the Divine Father who receives, and the 
Divine Son who gives, the satisfaction for human guilt. The 
Locrian king took a part of the penalty himself, and left the 
remainder where it was due ; but the Sovereign Lawgiver 
of Calvinism puts the whole upon another. To sustain the 
analogy, Zaleucus should have permitted an innocent son to 
have both his eyes put out, and the convicted adulterer to 
escape. 

The doctrine of Atonement has introduced among Trinita¬ 
rians a mode of speaking respecting God, which grates most 
painfully against the reverential affections due to him. His 
nature is dismembered into a number of attributes, foreign to 
each other, and preferring rival claims ; the Divine tranquil¬ 
lity appears as the equilibrium of opposing pressures, — the 
Divine administration as a resultant from the collision of hos¬ 
tile forces. Goodness pleads for that which holiness forbids; 
and the Paternal God would do many a mercy, did the Sov¬ 
ereign God allow. The idea of a conflict or embarrassment 
in the Supreme Mind being thus introduced, and the believer 
being haunted by the feeling of some tremendous difficulty 
affecting the Infinite government, the vicarious economy is 
brought forward as the relief, the solution of the whole per¬ 
plexity; the union, by a blessed compromise, of attributes 
that could never combine in any scheme before. The main 
business of theology is made to consist in stating the condi¬ 
tions and expounding the solution of this imaginary problem. 
The cardinal difficulty is thought to be the reconciliation of 
justice and mercy; and, as the one is represented under the 


INTRODUCTION. 


xxiii 


image of a Sovereign, the other under that of a Father, the 
question assumes this form : How can the same being at every 
moment possess both these characters, without abandoning 
any function or feeling appropriate to either ? how, especially, 
can the Judge remit ? — it is beyond his power; yet how can 
the Parent punish to the uttermost ? — it is contrary to his 
nature. 

All this difficulty is merely fictitious, arising out of the 
determination to make out that God is both wholly Judge and 
wholly Father; from an anxiety, that is, to adhere to two 
metaphors, as applicable, in every particular, to the Divine 
Being. It is evident that both must be, to a great extent, in¬ 
appropriate ; and in nothing, surely, is the impropriety more 
manifest, than in the assertion that, as sovereign, God is nat¬ 
urally bound to execute laws which, nevertheless, it would 
be desirable to remit, or change in their operation. What¬ 
ever painful necessities the imperfection of human legislation 
and judicial procedure may impose, the Omniscient Ruler 
can make no law which he will not to all eternity, and with 
entire consent of his whole nature, deem it well to execute. 
This is the Unitarian answer to the constant question, “ How 
can God forgive in defiance of his own law ? ** It is not in 
defiance of his laws : every one of which will be fulfilled to 
the uttermost, in conformity with his first intent; but nowhere 
has he declared that he would not forgive. All justice con¬ 
sists in treating moral agents according to their character; 
the inexorability of human law arises solely from the imper¬ 
fection with which it can attain this end, and is not the es¬ 
sence, but the alloy, of equity; but God, who searches and 
controls the heart, exercises that perfect justice, which per¬ 
mits the penal suffering to depart only with the moral guilt; 
and pardons, not by cancelling any sentence, but by obeying 
his eternal purpose to meet the wanderer returning home¬ 
ward, and give his blessing to the restored. Only by such 
restoration can any past guilt be effaced. The thoughts, emo¬ 
tions, and sufferings of sin, once committed, are woven into 
the fabric of the soul; and are as incapable of being abso- 


xxiv 


INTRODUCTION. 


lutely obliterated thence and put back into non-existence, as 
moments of being struck from the past, or the parts of space 
from infinitude. Herein we behold alike “ the goodness and 
the severity of God ” ; and adore in him, not the balance of 
contrary tendencies, but the harmony of consentaneous per¬ 
fections. How plainly does experience show that, if his per¬ 
sonal unity be given up, his moral unity cannot be preserved! 

The author himself is the best exemplification of the 
man described in this account of the 

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN APPREHENSION AND INTERPRETATION. 

The difference between the ordinary visual gaze upon the 
external universe, and the interpreting glance of science, is 
felt by every cultivated understanding to be immeasurable ; — 
and the contrast is not less between that dull sense of what 
passes within him, which is forced upon a man by mere 
practical experience, and the exact consciousness, the discrim¬ 
inative perception, the easy comprehension of his own (and, 
so far as they are expressed by faithful symbols, of others’) 
states and affections, possessed by the patient analyst of 
thought and emotion, and careful collector of their laws. The 
mighty mass of human achievement and human failure, in 
intellectual research, in moral endeavor, in social economy 
and government, lapses into order before him, and distributes 
itself among the provinces of determinate laws. The struc¬ 
ture of a child’s perplexity, and the fallacies of the most am¬ 
bitious hypothesis, lie open to him as readily, as to the artisan 
a flaw in the fabric of his own craft. The creations of art 
fall before him into their elements ; and, dissolving away 
their constitutent matter , which is an accident of their age, 
leave upon his mind their permanent form of beauty, as his 
guide to a true and noble criticism. The progress and the 
aberrations of human reason, in its quest of truth, are as 
clearly appreciated by him, as the passages of happy skill or 
ignorant roving in some voyage of discovery, when the out- 


INTRODUCTION. 


XXV 


lines and relations of the sphere on which it is made become 
fully known. Discerning distinctly the different kinds of 
evidence appropriate to different departments of truth, and 
weighing the scientific value of every idea and method of 
thought, he is not at the mercy of each superficial impression 
and obtrusive phase presented to him by the subjects of his 
contemplation; but he attains a certain rational tact and 
graduated feeling of certainty in abstract matters of opinion, 
by which he escapes alike the miseries of undefined doubt, 
and the passions of unqualified dogmatism. In short, the 
great idea of Science is applied by him to the complicated 
workings of the mind of man ; interprets the activities of his 
nature, and gives laws to the administration of his life ; and, 
with wonderful analysis, investigates the properties, and estab¬ 
lishes the equation, of their most labyrinthine curves. 

"What a rebuke upon dogmatic sciolists, what a 
glorious invitation to study, are conveyed in the 
genial, broad, mental hospitality of the succeeding par¬ 
agraph ! 

NECESSITY OF LEARNING IN PHILOSOPHY. 

If there is one department of knowledge more than another 
in which a contemptuous disregard of the meditations and 
theories of distant periods and nations is misplaced, it is in 
the philosophy of man, — which can have no adequate 
breadth of basis till it reposes on the consciousness and covers 
the mental experience of the universal race ; and to construct 
which out of purely personal materials, is like attempting to 
lay down the curves and finish the theory of terrestrial mag¬ 
netism on the strength of a few closet experiments. No man, 
however large-thoughted and composite his mind, can accept 
of himself as the type of universal human nature. It will 
even be a great and rare endowment, if, with every aid of 
exact learning and unwearying patience, he is able to pene¬ 
trate the atmosphere of others’ understanding, and to observe 
c 


xxvi 


INTRODUCTION. 


the forms and colors which the objects of contemplation as¬ 
sume, when beheld through this peculiar medium. Simply to 
avail one’s self of the experience of mankind, and know what 
it has really been, demands no little scope of imagination 
and versatility of intellectual sympathy. When these quali¬ 
ties are so deficient in a thinker that he cannot well achieve 
this knowledge, it is a great misfortune to his philosophy; 
when the want is such that he does not even desire it, it 
amounts to an absolute disqualification. Without, therefore, 
pledging ourselves to the eclectic principles which prevail in 
the present school of philosophy in France, we must beware 
of the intolerant dogmatism of Bentham in England, sanc¬ 
tioned, as we have seen, by one of the masters of the antago¬ 
nist metaphysics in Germany. Indeed, it will be a chief 
purpose of all my lectures to enable you to profit by the light 
of other minds ; in every province of the vast region which 
we shall explore together, to indicate the paths which they 
have traversed before, nor ever to turn away from their 
points of discovery, without raising some rude monument at 
least of honest and commemorative praise. To introduce you 
to the works, to interpret the difficulties, to do honor to the 
labors, to review the opinions, of the great masters of specula¬ 
tive thought in every age and in many lands, will be an 
indispensable portion of my duty; — a task most arduous 
indeed, but than which none can be more grateful to one who 
loves to trace, through all their affinities, the indestructible 
types of truth and beauty in the human mind; and to mark 
the natural laws, connecting together the most opposite conti¬ 
nents and climes of thought, as parts, successively colonized 
and cultivated, of one great intellectual world. But in addi¬ 
tion to the study of the several classes of psychological and 
moral doctrine as they present themselves in the order of 
science, it will be important to spread out the literature of 
philosophy before us in the order of time ; to gain an insight 
into the natural development of successive modes of thought 
on speculative subjects ; to notice the action and reaction of 
philosophy and practical life; to ascertain whether opinion 


INTRODUCTION. 


xxvii 


on these abstract matters really advances into knowledge and 
has any determinate progression, or whether it oscillates for 
ever on either side of some fixed idea, or line of mental grav¬ 
itation. In short, having surveyed our subject systematically, 
we shall go over it again chronologically; and call upon phi¬ 
losophy, when it has recited its creed, and revealed its wisdom, 
to finish all by writing its history. 

The hints given in Mr. Martineau’s frequent refer¬ 
ences to the bearing of scientific knowledge and laws 
upon theological speculations are very important. We 
adduce a single example. 

PHYSICAL SCIENCE AND RELIGION. 

An accomplished and thoughtful observer of nature — 
Hugh Miller, the geologist — has somewhere remarked, that 
religion has lost its dependence on metaphysical theories, and 
must henceforth maintain itself upon the domain of physical 
science. He accordingly exhorts the guardians of sacred 
truth to prepare themselves for the approaching crisis in its 
history, by exchanging the study of thoughts for the appre¬ 
hension of things, and carefully cultivating the habit of in¬ 
ductive research. The advice is excellent, and proceeds from 
one whose own example has amply proved its worth; and 
unless the clergy qualify themselves to take part in the dis¬ 
cussions which open themselves with the advance of natural 
knowledge, they will assuredly be neither secure in their per¬ 
sonal convictions nor faithful to their public trust. The only 
fault to be found with this counsel is, that in recommending 
one kind of knowledge it disparages another, and betrays that 
limited intellectual sympathy which is the bane of all noble 
culture. Geology, astronomy, chemistry, so far from succeed¬ 
ing to the inheritance of metaphysics, do but enrich its prob¬ 
lems with new conceptions and give a larger outline to its 
range; and should they, in the wantonness of their young 
ascendency, persuade men to its neglect, they will pay the 


XXV111 


INTRODUCTION. 


penalties of their contempt by the appearance of confusion in 
their own doctrine. The advance of any one line of human 
thought demands — especially for the security of faith—the 
parallel movement of all the rest; and the attempt to substi¬ 
tute one intellectual reliance for another, mistakes for progress 
of knowledge what may be only an exchange of ignorance. 
In particular, the study of external nature must proceed pari 
passu with the study of the human mind; and the errors of 
an age too exclusively reflective will not be remedied, but 
only reversed, by mere reaction into sciences of outward fact 
and observation. These physical pursuits, followed into their 
further haunts, rapidly run up into a series of notions com¬ 
mon to them all, — expressed by such words as. Law, Cause , 
Force , — which at once transfer the jurisdiction from the 
provincial courts of the special sciences to the high chancery 
of universal philosophy. To conduct the pleadings — still 
more to pronounce the judgment — there, other habits of 
mind are needed than are required in the museum and the 
observatory; and the history of knowledge, past and present, 
abounds with instances of men who, with the highest merit in 
particular walks of science, have combined a curious incom¬ 
petency of survey over the whole. Hence, very few natural 
philosophers, however eminent for great discoveries and 
dreaded by the priesthood of their day, have made any deep 
and durable impression on the religious conception of the 
universe, as the product and expression of an Infinite Mind ; 
and in tracing the eras of human faith, the deep thinker 
comes more prominently into view than the skilful interrogator 
of nature. In the history of religion, Plato is a greater fig¬ 
ure than Archimedes; Spinoza than Newton; Hume and 
Kant than Volta and La Place; even Thomas Carlyle than 
Justus Liebig. Our picture indeed of the system of things is 
immensely enlarged, both in space and duration, by the pro¬ 
gress of descriptive science; and the grouping of its objects 
and events is materially changed. But the altered scene 
carries with it the same expression to the soul; speaks the 
same language as to its origin; renews its ancient glance with 


INTRODUCTION. 


xxix 


an auguster beauty; and, in spite of all dynamic theories, 
reproduces the very modes of faith and doubt which belonged 
to the age both of the old Organon and of the new. 

The ultimate problem of all philosophy and all religion is 
this: “How are we to conceive aright the origin and first 
principle of things ? ” The answers, it has been contended 
by a living author of distinguished merit, are necessarily re¬ 
ducible to two, between which all systems are divided, and on 
the decision of whose controversy, all antagonist speculations 
would lay down their arms. “ In the beginning was Force,” 
says one class of thinkers; “ force, singular or plural, split¬ 
ting into opposites, standing off into polarities, ramifying into 
attractions and repulsions, heat and magnetism, and climbing 
through the stages of physical, vital, animal, to the mental 
life itself.” “ On the contrary,” says the other class, “ in the 
beginning was Thought ; and only in the necessary evolu¬ 
tion of its eternal ideas into expression does force arise, — self- 
realizing thought declaring itself in the types of being and 
the laws of phenomena.” We need hardly say, that the 
former of these two notions coalesces with the creed of Athe¬ 
ism, and is most frequently met with upon the path of the 
physical sciences, while the latter is favored by the mathe¬ 
matical and metaphysical, and gives the essence of Pantheism. 
Each of them has insurmountable difficulties, with which it is 
successfully taunted by the other. Start from blind force; 
and how, by any spinning from that solitary centre, are we 
ever to arrive at the seeing intellect ? Can the lower create 
the higher, and the unconscious enable us to think ? Start 
from pure thinking, and how then can you get any force for 
the production of objective effects ? How metamorphose a 
passage of dialect into the power of gravitation, and a silent 
corollary into a flash of lightning ? In taking the intellect as 
the type of God, this difficulty must always be felt. We are 
well aware that it is not in this endowment that our dynamic 
energy resides. The activity which we ascribe to our intel¬ 
lect is not a power going out into external efficiency, but a 
mere passage across the internal field of successive thoughts 


XXX 


INTRODUCTION. 


as spontaneous phenomena. Nor have we, as thinking beings 
only, any option with respect to the thoughts thus streaming 
over the theatre of rational consciousness; our constitution 
legislates for us in this particular, and the order of sugges¬ 
tion is determined by laws having their seat in us. Finally, 
we are not, by mere thinking capacity, constituted persons , 
any more than a sleeper who should never wake, yet always 
be engaged with rational and scientific dreams, would be a 
person. Without some further endowment, we should only 
be a logical life and development. All these characters are 
imported into the conception of God, when he is represented 
as conforming to the type of reason. The activity of intel¬ 
lect being wholly internal, the phenomena of the Universe 
could not be referred to Him as a thinking being, were they 
not gathered up into the interior of his nature, and con¬ 
ceived, not as objective effects of his power, but as purely 
subjective successions within the theatre of his infinitude. 
Intellect again having no option, the God of this theory is 
without freedom, and is represented as the eternal necessity 
of reason. And lastly, in fidelity to the same analogy, He 
is not a divine Person , but rather a Thinking Thing , or the 
thinking function of the universe ; we may say, universal 
science in a state of self-consciousness. The necessity under 
which Pantheism lies, of fetching all that is to be referred to 
God into the interior of his being, and dealing with it as not 
less a necessary manifestation of his mental essence than are 
our ideas of the mind that has them, explains the unwilling¬ 
ness of this system to allow any motives to God, any field of 
objective operation, any special relation to individuals, any 
revealing interposition, any supernatural agency. 

Is it however true, that human belief can only choose 
between these two extremes, and must oscillate eternally be¬ 
tween the Atheistic homage to Force, and the Pantheistic to 
Thought? Far from it; and it is curiously indicative of the 
state of the philosophic atmosphere in Germany, that one of 
her most discerning and wide-seeing authors should find no 
third possibility within the sphere of vision. In any latitude 


INTRODUCTION. 


xxxi 


except one in which moral science has altogether melted 
away in the universal solvent of metaphysics, it would occur 
as one of the most obvious suggestions, that the intellect is 
not the only element of human nature which may be taken 
as type of the Divine, and as furnishing a possible solution to 
the problem of origination. Quitting the two poles of ex¬ 
treme philosophy, confessedly incompetent in their separation, 
we submit that Will presents the middle point which takes 
up into itself Thought on the one hand and Force on the 
other; and which yet, so far from appearing to us as a com¬ 
pound arising out of them as an effect, is more easily con¬ 
ceived than either as the originating prefix of all phenomena. 
It has none of the disqualifications which we have remarked 
as flowing from the others into their respective systems of 
doctrine. It carries with it, in its very idea, the co-presence 
of Thought, as the necessary element within whose sphere it 
has to manifest itself. Its phenomena cannot exist alone ; it 
acts on preconceptions, which stand related to it, however, not 
as its source, but as its conditions, and are its co-ordinates in 
the effect rather than its generating antecedents. If there¬ 
fore all things are issued by Will, there is Mind at the foun¬ 
tain-head, and the absurdity is avoided of deriving intelli¬ 
gence from unintelligence. While it thus escapes the diffi¬ 
culty of passing from mere Force to Thought, it is equally 
clear of the opposite difficulty of making mere Thought sup¬ 
ply any Force. The activity of Will is not, like that of In¬ 
tellect, a subjective transit of regimented ideas, but an object¬ 
ive power going out for the production of effects; nay, it is 
a free power, exercising preference among data furnished by 
internal or external conditions present in its field; and it thus 
constitutes proper Causality , which always implies control 
over an alternative. We need hardly add, that all the requi¬ 
sites are thus complete for the true idea of a Person; and 
an Infinite Being contemplated under this type is neither a 
fateful nor a logical principle of necessity, but a living God, 
out of whose purposed legislation has sprung whatever neces¬ 
sity there is, except the self-existent beauty of his holiness. 


xxxii 


INTRODUCTION. 


Thus, between the Force of the physical Atheist, and the 
Thought of the metaphysical Pantheist, we fix upon the ful¬ 
crum of Will as the true balance-point of a moral Theism. 

It would be impossible, perhaps, to find anywhere a 
finer instance of perspicuity in condensation, than is 
given in the following reference to 

LESSING’S THEOLOGICAL CONCLUSIONS. 

Lessing refused to surrender Christianity, on proof of error 
in its first teachers, uncertainty in its reported miracles, con¬ 
tradictions in its early literature, misapplication of Messianic 
prophecies. All these he regards as but the external acci¬ 
dents, the transitory media, of the religion, constituting, it may 
be, its support in one age and its weakness in another. They 
do not belong to its inner essence, in which alone the real 
evidence of spiritual truth is found; and he who detects any¬ 
thing amiss with them may even render a service by driving 
men from sham-proofs, that really persuade no one, to true 
ones that lie at the heart of things. Religious doctrine can¬ 
not be deduced from mere historical facts without a nerapaais 
els aXXo yevos vitiating the whole process. Facts indeed may 
become the proper ground of moral and spiritual faith; but 
then they must be facts which come over again and again, 
and betray an element that is permanent and eternal; which 
form part of the experience and consciousness of humanity; 
and ally themselves with the Divine by not losing their pres¬ 
ence in the world. But unrepeated facts , which limit them¬ 
selves to a moment, which are the incidents of a single 
personality, and are left behind quite insulated in the past, 
show — were it only by your not expecting them again — 
that they are detached from the persistent and essential life 
of the universe and humanity. They are but once and 
away; and least of all, therefore, can testify of the untransi- 
tory and ever-living. The real can teach us only so far as it 


INTRODUCTION. 


xxxiii 


has an ideal kernel, redeeming it from the character of a 
solitary phenomenon. Among the various expositions and 
applications of this favorite theme of Lessing’s, we select the 
following sentences from his Axiomata. 

1. “The Bible evidently contains more than belongs to 
Religion.” 

2. “ That in this 1 more ’ the Bible is still infallible, is mere 
hypothesis.” 

3. “ The letter is not the spirit, and the Bible is not the 
Religion.” 

4. “ The objections therefore against the letter and against 
the Bible, are not on that account objections against the spirit 
and against the Religion.” 

5. “ Moreover there was a religion ere there was a Bible.” 

6. “ Christianity was in being before Evangelists and Apos¬ 
tles had written. Some time elapsed before the first of them 
wrote, and a very considerable time before the whole canon 
was constituted.” 

7. “ However much, therefore, may depend on these writ¬ 
ings, it is impossible that the whole truth of the Christian re¬ 
ligion can rest upon them.” 

8. “If there was a period during which, diffused as the 
Christian religion already was, and many as were the souls 
filled already with its power, still not a letter had yet been 
written of the records which have come down to us ; then it 
must be also possible for all the writings of Evangelists and 
Apostles to perish, yet the religion taught by them still to 
subsist.” 

9. “ The religion is not true because Evangelists and Apos¬ 
tles taught it; but they taught it because it is true.” 

10. “ Its interior truth must furnish the interpretation of the 
writings it has handed down; and no writings handed down 
can give it interior truth, if it has none.” 

In his controversy with Goze, he illustrates this distinction 
between the essence and the historical form of Christianity, 
by a parable to the following effect. A wise king of a great 
realm built a palace of immense size and very peculiar archi- 


xxxiv 


INTRODUCTION. 


tecture. About this structure, there came from the very first 
a foolish strife to be carried on, especially amopg reputed 
connoisseurs, people, that is, who had least looked into the in¬ 
terior. This strife was not about the palace itself, but about 
various old ground-plans of it, and drawings of the same, 
very difficult to make out. Once, when the watchmen cried 
out “ Fire,” these connoisseurs, instead of running to help, 
snatched up their plans, and, instead of putting out the fire on 
the spot, kept standing with their plans in hand, making a 
hubbub all the while, and‘squabbling about whether this was 
the spot on fire, and that the place to put it out. Happily, 
the safety of the palace did not depend on these busy wran¬ 
glers, for it was not on fire at all; the watchmen had been 
frightened by the Northern lights, and mistaken them for 
fire. It is impossible to convey by a clearer image Lessing’s 
feeling, that a Christianity once incorporated in the very sub¬ 
stance of history and civilization, seated deep in human sen¬ 
timent and thought, and developed into literature, law, and 
life, subsists independently of critical questions, and is with 
us, not as the contingent vapor that a wind may rise to blow 
away, but as the cloud that has dropped its rain and mingled 
with the roots of things. 


In immediate contrast with the foregoing application 
of a critical method to the historic documents of 
Christianity, it is beautiful to see the same genius 
turned with eager joy to a practical recommendation 
of the experimental life of Christianity. 


THE REDEEMING LAW OF SYMPATHY. 

It is quite true, that self-cure is of all things the most ar¬ 
duous ; but that which is impossible to the man within us, may 
be altogether possible to the God. In truth, the denial of 
such changes, under the affectation of great knowledge of 
man, shows an incredible ignorance of men. Why, the his- 


INTRODUCTION. 


XXXV 


tory of every great religious revolution, such as the spread of 
Methodism, is made up of nothing else; the instances occur¬ 
ring in such number and variety, as to transform the character 
of whole districts and vast populations, and to put all scepti¬ 
cism at utter defiance. And if some more philosophic au¬ 
thority is needed for the fact, we may be content with the 
sanction of Lord Bacon, who observed that a man reforms 
his habits either altogether or not at all. Deterioration of 
mind is indeed always gradual; recovery usually sudden; for 
God, by a mystery of mercy, has established this distinction 
in our secret nature, — that, while we cannot, by one dark 
plunge, sympathize with guilt far beneath us, but gaze at it 
with recoil till intermediate shades have rendered the degra¬ 
dation tolerable, we are yet capable of sympathizing with 
moral excellence and beauty infinitely above us; so that, 
while the debased may shudder and sicken at even the true 
picture of themselves, they can feel the silent majesty of self- 
denying and disinterested duty. With a demon can no man 
feel complacency, though the demon be himself; but God can 
all spirits reverence, though his holiness be an infinite deep. 
And thus the soul, privately uneasy at its insincere state, is 
prepared, when vividly presented with some sublime object 
veiled before, to be pierced, as by a flash from heaven, with 
an instant veneration, sometimes intense enough to fuse the 
fetters of habit, and drop them to the earth whence they were 
forged. The mind is ready, like a liquid on the eve of crys¬ 
tallization, to yield up its state on the touch of the first sharp 
point, and dart, over its surface and in its depths, into bril¬ 
liant and beautiful forms, and from being turbid and weak as 
water, to become clear as crystal, and solid as the rock. 

One of the most elaborate and valuable productions 
from Mr. Martineau’s pen, an article closely allied in 
all respects to the ensuing Studies of Christianity, is 
the one of some portions of which we herewith pre¬ 
sent an epitome. 


XXXVI 


INTRODUCTION. 


• THE CHRISTIAN VIEW OF MORAL EVIL. 

The Divine sentiments towards right and wrong every man 
naturally believes to be a reflection of whatever is most pure 
and solemn in his own. We cannot be sincerely persuaded, 
that God looks with aversion on dispositions which we revere 
as good and noble; or that he regards with lax indifference 
the selfish and criminal passions which awaken our own dis¬ 
gust. We may well suppose, indeed, his scrutiny more 
searching, his estimate more severely true, his rebuking look 
more awful, than our self-examination and remorse can fitly 
represent; but we cannot doubt that our moral emotions, as 
far as they go, are in sympathy with his ; that we know, by 
our own consciousness, the general direction of his approval 
and displeasure; and that, in proportion as our perceptions 
of duty are rendered clear, our judgment more nearly ap¬ 
proaches the precision of the Omniscient award. Our own 
conscience is the window of heaven through which we gaze 
on God; and, as its colors perpetually change, his aspect 
changes too ; — if they are bright and fair, he dwells as in the 
warm light of a rejoicing love ; if they are dark and turbid, he 
hides himself in robes of cloud and storm. When you have 
lost your self-respect, you have never thought yourself an 
object of Divine complacency. In moments fresh from sin, 
flushed with the shame of an insulted mind, when you have 
broken another resolve, or turned your back upon a noble 
toil, or succumbed to a mean passion, or lapsed into the sick¬ 
ness of self-indulgence, could you ever turn a clear and open 
face to God, nor think it terrible to meet his eye ? Could 
you imagine yourself in congeniality with him, when you 
gave yourself up to the voluble sophistry of self-excuse, and 
the loose hurry of forgetfulness ? Or did you not discern him 
rather in your own accusing heart, and meet him in the silent 
anguish of full confession, and find in the recognition of your 
alienation the first hope of return? To all unperverted 
minds, the verdict of conscience sounds with a preternatural 


INTRODUCTION. 


xxxvii 


voice ; it is not the homely talk of their own poor judgment, 
but an oracle of the sanctuary. There is something of anti¬ 
cipation in our remorse, as well as of retrospect; and we feel 
that it is not the mere survey of a gloomy past with the slow 
lamp of our understanding, but a momentary piercing of the 
future with the vivid lightning of the skies. Our moral nature, 
left to itself, intuitively believes that guilt is an estrangement 
from God,— an unqualified opposition to his will, — a literal 
service of the enemy; that he abhors it, and will give it no 
rest till it is driven from his presence, that is, into anni¬ 
hilation ; that no part of our mind belongs to him but the pure, 
and just, and disinterested affections which he fosters, the 
faithful will which he strengthens, the virtue, often damped, 
whose smoking flax he will not quench, and the good re¬ 
solves, ever frail, whose bruised reed he will not break ; and 
that he has no relation but of displeasure, no contact but of 
resistance, with our selfishness and sin. In the simple faith of 
the conscience it is no figure of speech to say, that God “ is 
angry with the wicked every day,” and is “of purer eyes 
than to behold iniquity.” So long as the natural religion 
of the heart is undisturbed, to sin is, in the plainest and 
most positive sense, to set up against Heaven, and frustrate 
its will. 

Soon, however, the understanding disturbs the tranquillity 
of this belief, and constructs a rival creed. The primitive 
conception of God is acquired, I believe, without reasoning, 
and emerges from the affections; it is a transcript of our own 
emotions, — an investiture of them with external personality 
and infinite magnitude. But a secondary idea of Deity arises 
in the intellect, from its reasonings about causation. Curi¬ 
osity is felt respecting the origin of things ; and the order, 
beauty, and mechanism of external nature are too con¬ 
spicuous not to force upon the observation the conviction of 
a great Architect of the universe, from whose designing 
reason its forces and its laws mysteriously sprung. Hence 
the intellectual conception of God the Creator , which comes 
into inevitable collision with the moral notion of God the holy 

d 


XXXV111 


INTRODUCTION. 


watch of virtue. For if the system of creation is the pro¬ 
duction of his Omniscience ; if he has constituted human 
nature as it is, and placed it in the scene whereon it acts ; if 
the arrangements by which happiness is allotted, and char¬ 
acter is formed, are the contrivance of his thought and the 
■work of his hand, — then the sufferings and the guilt of every 
being were objects of his original contemplation, and the 
productions of his own design. The deed of crime must, in 
this case, be as much an integral part of his Providence, as 
the efforts and sacrifices of virtue ; and the monsters of licen¬ 
tiousness and tyranny, whose images deform the scenery of 
history, are no less truly his appointed instruments, than the 
martyr and the sage. And though we remain convinced that 
he does not make choice of evil in his government for its 
own sake, but only for ultimate ends worthy of his per¬ 
fections, still we can no longer see how he can truly hate that 
which he employs for the production of good. That which is 
his chosen instrument cannot be sincerely regarded as his 
everlasting enemy; and only figuratively can he be said to 
repudiate a power which he continually wields. There must 
be some sense in which it appears, in the eye of Omniscience, 
to be eligible; some point of view at which its horrors 
vanish; and where the moral distinctions, which we feel 
ourselves impelled to venerate, disappear from the regards 
of God. , 

Here, then, is a fearful contradiction between the religion 
of conscience and the religion of the understanding; the one 
pronouncing evil to be the antagonist, the other to be the 
agent, of the Divine will. In every age has this difficulty 
laid a heavy weight upon the human heart; in every age has 
it pointed the sarcasm of the blasphemer, mingled an occa¬ 
sional sadness with the hopes of benevolence, and tinged the 
devotion of the thoughtful with a somewhat melancholy trust. 
The whole history of speculative religion is one prolonged 
effort of the human mind to destroy this contrariety; system 
after system has been born in the struggle to cast the op¬ 
pression off, — with what result, it will be my object at present 


INTRODUCTION. 


XXXIX 


to explain. The question which we have to consider is this, 
“ Plow should a Christian think of the origin and existence of 
evil ? ” I propose to advert, first, to the speculative ; secondly, 
to the scriptural; thirdly, to the moral relations of the sub¬ 
ject ; to inquire what relief we can obtain from philosophical 
schemes, from biblical doctrine, and from practical Chris¬ 
tianity. 

Let us then, for final decision, consult the practical spirit 
of Christianity, and ascertain to what view of the origin of 
sin it awards the preference. Is it well for the consciences 
and characters of men, to consider God — either directly or 
through his dependant, Satan, either by his general laws 
or by vitiating the constitution of our first parents — as the 
primary source of moral evil? or, on the contrary, to regard 
it as in no sense whatever willed by the Supreme Mind, and 
absolutely inimical to his Providence ? Are we most in har¬ 
mony with the characteristic spirit of the Gospel when we 
call sin his instrument, or when we call it his enemy? For 
myself, I can never sit at the feet of Jesus, and yield up a 
reverential heart to his great lessons, without casting myself 
on the persuasion, that God and evil are everlasting foes; 
that never, and for no end, did he create it; that his will is 
utterly against it, nor ever touches it, but with annihilating 
force. Any other view appears to be injurious to the charac¬ 
teristic sentiments, and at variance with the distinguishing 
genius, of Christian morality. 

(1.) Christianity is distinguished by the profound senti¬ 
ment of individual responsibility which pervades it. All the 
arbitrary forms, and sacerdotal interpositions, and hereditary 
rights, through which other systems seek the Divine favor, 
are disowned by it. It is a religion eminently personal; es¬ 
tablishing the most intimate and solitary dealings between 
God and every human soul. It is a religion eminently 
natural; eradicating no indigenous affection of our mind, 
distorting no primitive moral sentiment; but simply conse¬ 
crating the obligations proper to our nature, and taking up 


xl 


INTRODUCTION. 


with a divine voice the whispers, scarce articulate before, of 
the conscience within us. In this deep harmony with our 
inmost consciousness of duty resides the true power of our 
religion. It subdues and governs our hearts, as a wise con¬ 
queror rules the empire he has won; not by imposing a sys¬ 
tem of strange laws, but by arming with higher authority, 
and administering with more resolute precision, the laws 
already recognized and revered. 

To trifle in any way with this plain and solemn principle, 
to invent forms of speech tending to conceal it, to apply to 
moral good and ill language which assimilates them to phys¬ 
ical objects and exchangeable property, implies frivolous and 
irreverent ideas of sin and excellence. The whole weight 
of this charge evidently falls on the scheme which speaks of 
human guilt as an hereditary entail; a scheme which shocks 
and confounds our primary notion of right and wrong, and, 
by rendering them impersonal qualities, reduces them to 
empty names. No construction can be given to the system, 
which does not pass this insult on the conscience. In what 
sense do we share the guilt of our progenitor ? His conces¬ 
sion to temptation did not occur within our mind, or belong 
in any way to our history. And if, without participation in 
the act of wrong, we are to have its 'penalties , crimes in 
the planet Saturn may be expected to shower curses on the 
earth; for why may not justice go astray in space, as rea¬ 
sonably as in time ? If nothing more be meant, than that 
from our first parents we inherit a constitution liable to in¬ 
tellectual error and moral transgression, — still it is evident 
that, until this liability takes actual effect, no sin exists, but 
only its possibility; and when it takes effect, there is just so 
much guilt, and no more, than might be committed by the 
individual’s will: so that where there is no volition, as in 
infancy, cruelty only could inflict punishment; and where 
there is pure volition, as in many a good passage of the 
foulest life, equity itself could not withhold approval. 

(2.) I submit as a second distinguishing feature of practical 
Christianity, that it makes no great, pertainly no exclusive, 


INTRODUCTION. 


xli 


appeal to the ‘prudential feelings , as instruments of duty; 
treats them as morally incapable of so sacred a work; and 
relies, chiefly and characteristically, on affections of the heart, 
which no motives of reward and punishment can have the 
smallest tendency to excite. 

The Gospel, indeed, like all things divine, is unsystematic 
and unbound by technical distinctions, and makes no meta¬ 
physical separation between the will and the affections. It is 
too profoundly adapted to our nature, not to address itself 
copiously to both. The doctrine of retribution, being a solemn 
truth, appears with all its native force in the teachings of 
Christ, and arms many of his appeals with a persuasion just 
and terrible. But never was there a religion (containing 
these motives at all) so frugal in the use of them; so able, on 
fit occasions, to dispense with them; so rich in those inimit-. 
able touches of moral beauty, and tones that penetrate the 
conscience, and generous trust in the better sympathies, which 
distinguish a morality of the affections. In Christ himself, 
where is there a trace of the obedience of pious self-interest, 
computing its everlasting gains, and making out a case for 
compensation, by submitting to infinite wisdom? In his 
character, which is the impersonation of his religion, we surely 
have a perfect image of spontaneous goodness, unhaunted by 
the idea of personal enjoyment, and, like that of God, un¬ 
bidden but by the intuitions of conscience and the impulses 
of love. And what teacher less divine ever made such high 
and bold demands on our disinterestedness ? To lend out our 
virtue upon interest, to “love them only who love us,” he 
pronounced to be the sinners’ morality ; nor was the feeling of 
duty ever reached, but by those who could “ do good, hoping 
for nothing again,” except that greatest of rewards to a true 
and faithful heart, to be “ the children of the Highest,” who 
“ is kind unto the unthankful and the evil.” In the view of 
Jesus, all dealings between God and men were not of bargain, 
but of affection. We must surrender ourselves to him with¬ 
out terms ; must be ashamed to doubt him who feeds the birds 
of the air, and, like the lily of the field, look up to him with a 

d* 


xlii 


INTRODUCTION. 


bright and loving eye; and he, for our much love, will pity 
and forgive us. In his own ministry, how much less did our 
Lord rely for disciples on the cogency of mere proof, and the 
inducements of hope and fear, than on the power of moral 
sympathy, by which every one that was of God naturally 
loved him and heard his words ; by which the good shepherd 
knew his sheep, and they listened to his voice, and followed 
him; and without which no man could come unto him, for 
no spirit of the Father drew him. No condition of disci- 
pleship did Christ impose, save that of “ faith in him ”; 
absolute trust in the spirit of his mind; a desire of self- 
abandonment to a love and fidelity like his, without tamper¬ 
ing with expediency, or hesitancy in peril, or shrinking 
from death. 

There is, then, a wide variance between the genius of 
Christianity, and that philosophy which teaches that all men 
must be bought over to the side of goodness and of God, by 
a price suited to their particular form of selfishness and ap¬ 
petite for pleasure. Our religion is remarkable for the large 
confidence it reposes on the disinterested affections, and the 
vast proportion of the work of life it consigns to them. And 
in thus seeking to subordinate and tranquillize the prudential 
feelings, Christ manifested how well he knew what was in 
man. He recognized the truth, which all experience declares, 
that in these emotions is nothing great, nothing lovable, noth¬ 
ing powerful; that their energy is perpetually found inca¬ 
pable of withstanding the impetuosity of passion; and that 
all transcendent virtues, all that brings us to tremble or to 
kneel, all the enterprises and conflicts which dignify history, 
and have stamped any new feature on human life, have had 
their origin in the disinterested region of the mind, — in affec¬ 
tions unconsciously entranced by some object sanctifying and 
divine. He knew, for it was his special mission to make all 
men feel, that it is the office of true religion to cleanse the 
sanctuary of the secret affections, and effect a regeneration 
of the heart. And this is a task which no direct ivisits of the 
will can possibly accomplish, and to which, therefore, all 


INTRODUCTION. 


xliii 


offers of reward and punishment, operating only on the will, 
are quite inapplicable. The single function of volition is to 
act ; over the executive part of our nature it is supreme, over 
the emotional it is powerless ; and all the wrestlings of desire 
for self-cure and self-elevation, are like the struggles of a child 
to lift himself. He who is anxious to be a philanthropist, is 
admiring benevolence, instead of loving men; and whoever is 
laboring to warm his devotions, yearns after piety, not after 
God. The mind can by no spasmodic bound seize on a new 
height of emotion, or change the light in which objects appear 
before its view. Persuade the judgment, bribe the self-in¬ 
terests, terrify the expectations, as you will, you can neither 
dislodge a favorite, nor enthrone a stranger, in the heart. 
Show me a child that flings an affectionate arm around a 
parent, and lights up his eyes beneath her face, and I know 
that there have been no lectures there upon filial* love; but 
that the mother, being lovable, has of necessity been loved; for 
to genial minds it is as impossible to withhold a pure affec¬ 
tion, when its object is presented, as for the flower to sulk 
within the mould, and clasp itself tight within the bud, when 
the gentle force of spring invites its petals to curl out into 
the warm light. As you reverence all good affections of our 
nature, and desire to awaken them, never call them duties, 
though they be so; for so doing, you address yourself to the 
will; and by hard trying no attachment ever entered the 
heart. Never preach on their great desirableness and pro¬ 
priety ; for so doing, you ask audience of the judgment; and 
by way of the understanding no glow of noble passion ever 
came. Never, above all, reckon up their balance of good 
and ill; for so doing, you exhort self-interest; and by that 
soiled way no true love will consent to pass. Nay, never 
talk of thend, nor even gaze curiously at them; for if they 
be of any worth and delicacy, they will be instantly looked 
out of countenance and fly. Nothing worthy of human ven¬ 
eration will condescend to be embraced, but for its own sake: 
grasp it for its excellent results, — make but the faintest offer 
to use it as a tool, and it slips away at the very conception of 


xliv 


INTRODUCTION. 


such insult. The functions of a healthy body go on, not by 
knowledge of physiology, but by the instinctive vigor of 
nature ; and you will no more brace the spiritual faculties to 
noble energy and true life by study of the uses of every 
feeling, than you can train an .athlete for the race by lectures 
on every muscle of every limb. The mind is not voluntarily 
active in the acquisition of any great idea, any new inspira¬ 
tion of faith; but passive, fixed on the object which has 
dawned upon it, and filled it with fresh light. 

If this be true, and if it be the object of practical Chris¬ 
tianity, not only to direct our hands aright, but to inspire our 
hearts, then can its ends never be achieved by the mere force 
of reward and punishment; then no system can prove its 
sufficiency by showing that it retains the doctrine of retribu¬ 
tion, and must even be held convicted of moral incompetency, 
if it trusts the conscience mainly to the prudential feelings, 
without due provision for enlisting the co-operation of many 
a disinteTested affection. 

We cannot refrain from affording those into whose 
hands this volume will go, the pleasure and the lofty 
encouragement which they must derive from the peru¬ 
sal of an extract on 


THE TRANSMISSION OF SUPERIOR THOUGHTS. 

It is a law of Providence in communities, that ideas shall 
be propagated downwards through the several gradations of 
minds. They have their origin in the suggestions of genius, 
and the meditations- of philosophy; they are assimilated by 
those who can admire what is great and true, but cannot 
originate ; and thence they are slowly infused into the popu¬ 
lar mind. The rapidity of the process may vary in different 
times, with the facilities for the transmission of thought, but 
its order is constant. Temporary causes may shield the 
inferior ranks of intelligence from the influence of the supe- 


INTRODUCTION. 


xlv 


rior; fanaticism may interpose for a while with success ; a 
want of the true spirit of sympathy between the instructors 
and the instructed may check by a moral repulsion the 
natural radiation of intellect; — but, in the end, Providence 
will re-assert its rule; and the conceptions born in the quiet 
heights of contemplation will precipitate themselves on the 
busy multitudes below. This principle interprets history and 
presages futurity. It shows us in the popular feeling and 
traditions of one age, a reflection from the philosophy of a 
preceding; and from the prevailing style of sentiment and 
speculation among the cultivated classes now, it enables us to 
foresee the spirit of a coming age. Nor only to foresee it, but 
to exercise over it a power, in the use of which there is a 
grave responsibility. If we are far-sighted in our views of 
improvement; if we are ambitious less of immediate and 
superficial effects than of the final and deep-seated agency 
of generous and holy principles ; if our love of opinions is a 
genuine expression of the disinterested love of truth ; — we 
shall remember who are the teachers of futurity; we shall 
appeal to those, within whose closets God is already comput¬ 
ing the destinies of remote generations,—men at once erudite 
and free, men who have the materials of knowledge with 
which to determine the great problems of morals and religion, 
and the genius to think and imagine and feel, without let or 
liinderance of hope or fear. 

We linger over the pages from which the preceding 
selections have been made, unwilling to end our 
grateful task of love. But one quotation more must 
be the last. With it we commend these Studies of 
Christianity, these timely thoughts for religious think¬ 
ers, to the candid and affectionate inquirers within all 
sects, confident that, so far as the work obtains a fit 
reception, it will exert that purifying, liberalizing, and 
sanctifying power which is the genuine influence of 
Christ. 


xlvi 


INTRODUCTION. 


CHRISTIANITY AND SECTARIAN THEOLOGY. 

The sectarian state of theology in this country cannot but 
be regarded as eminently unnatural. Its cold and hard min¬ 
istrations are entirely alien to the wants of the popular mind, 
which, except under the discipline of artificial influences, is 
always most awake to generous impressions. Its malignant 
exclusiveness is a perversion of the natural veneration of the 
human heart, which, except where it is interfered with by 
narrow and selfish systems, pours itself out, not in hatred 
towards anything that lives, but in love to the invisible ob¬ 
jects of trust and hope. Its disputatious trifling is an insult 
to the sanctity of conscience, which, except where it is 
betrayed into oblivion of its delicate and holy office, suppli¬ 
cates of religion, not a new ferocity of dogmatism, but an 
enlargement and refinement of its sense of right. It is the 
temper of sectarianism to seize on every deformity of every 
creed, and exhibit this caricature to the world’s gaze and 
aversion. It is the spirit of the soul’s natural piety to alight 
on whatever is beautiful and touching in every faith, and 
take there its secret draught of pure and fresh emotion. It is 
the passages of poetry and pathos in a system, which alone 
can lay a strong hold on the general mind and give them 
permanence ; and even the wild fictions which have endeared 
Romanism to the hearts of so many centuries, possess their 
elements of tenderness and magnificence. The fundamental 
principle of one who would administer religion to the minds 
of his fellow-men should be, that all that has ever been 
extensively venerated must possess ingredients that are ven¬ 
erable. If, in the spirit of sectarianism, he sees nothing in it 
but absurdity, it only proves that he does not see it all; it 
must have an aspect, which he has not yet caught, that 
awes the imagination, or touches the affections, or moves the 
conscience ; and those who receive it neither will nor should 
abandon it, till something is substituted, not only more con¬ 
sonant with the reason, but more awakening to these higher 


INTRODUCTION. 


xlvii 


faculties of soul. Hence, a rigid accuracy and logical pene¬ 
tration of mind, the power of detecting and exposing error, 
are not the only qualities needed by the religious reformer; 
and in a deep and reverential sympathy with human feelings, 
a quick perception of the great and beautiful, a promptitude 
to cast himself into the minds of others, and gaze through 
their eyes at the objects which they love, he will find the 
instrument of the sublimest intellectual power. The precise 
logician may sit eternally in the centre of his own circle of 
correct ideas, and preach demonstrably the folly of the 
world’s superstitions ; yet he will never affect the thoughts of 
any but marble-minded beings like himself. He disregards 
the fine tissue of emotions that clings round the objects which 
he so harshly handles ; and has yet to learn the art of pre¬ 
serving its fabric unimpaired, while he enfolds within it some¬ 
thing more worthy for it to foster and adore. 

As, then, it is to the moral and imaginative powers of the 
human mind that religion chiefly attaches itself, as it is by 
these that the want of it is most strongly felt, so is it to these 
that its ministrations should be, for the most part, addressed. 
While theologians are discussing the evidences of creeds, let 
teachers be conducting them to their applications. Let their 
respective resources of feeling and conception be unfolded 
before the soul of mankind; let it be tried what mental en¬ 
ergy they can inspire, what purity of moral perception infuse, 
what dignity of principle erect, what toils of philanthropy 
sustain. Thus would arise a new criterion of judgment be¬ 
tween differing systems; for that system must possess most 
truth which creates the most intelligence and virtue. Thus 
would the deeper devotional wants of society be no longer 
mocked by the privilege of choice among a few captious, 
verbal, and precise forms of belief. Thus, too, would the 
alienation which repels sect from sect give place to an incip¬ 
ient and growing sympathy; for when high intellect and 
excellence approach and stand in meek homage beneath the 
cross, how soon are the jarring voices of disputants hushed in 
the stillness of reverence! Who does not feel the refresh- 


xlviii 


INTRODUCTION. 


ment, when some stream of pure poetry, like Heber’s, winds 
into the desert of theology! when some flash of genius, like 
that of Chalmers, darts through its dull atmosphere! some 
strains of eloquence, like those of Clianning, float from a dis¬ 
tance on its heavy silence ! 

Such, then, are the objects which should be contemplated 
by those who, in the present times, aim at the reformation of 
religious sentiment; — first, the elevation of theology as an 
intellectual pursuit; secondly, the better application of re¬ 
ligion as a moral influence. Both these objects are directly 
or indirectly promoted by the Association whose cause I am 
privileged to advocate. It aids the first, by the distribution 
of many a work, the production of such minds as must redeem 
theology from contempt. It advances the second, by estab¬ 
lishing union and sympathy among those whose first princi¬ 
ples are in direct contradiction to all that is sectarian, and who 
desire only to emancipate the understanding from all that en¬ 
feebles, and the heart from all that narrows it. The triumph 
of its doctrines would be, not the ascendency of one sect, but 
the harmony of all. Let but the diversities which separate 
Christians retire, and the truths which they all profess to love 
advance to prominence, and, whatever may become of party 
names, our aims are fulfilled, and our satisfaction is complete. 
When faith in the paternity of God shall have kindled an 
affectionate and lofty devotion; when the vision of immor¬ 
tality, imparted by Christ’s resurrection, shall have created 
that spirit of duty which was the holiest inspiration of his 
life; when the sincere recognition of human brotherhood shall 
have supplanted all exclusive institutions, and banded society 
together under the vow of mutual aid and the hope of ever¬ 
lasting progress, our work will be done, our reward before 
us, and our little community of reformers lost in the wide 
fraternity of enlightened and benevolent men. 

The day is yet distant, and can be won only by the toil of 
earnest and faithful minds. In the mean while, it is no light 
solace to see that the tendencies of Providence are towards 
its accelerated approach. And however dispiriting may 


INTRODUCTION. 


xlix 


sometimes be the variety and conflicts of human sentiment,— 
however remote the dissonance of controversy from that har¬ 
mony of will which would seem essential to perfected society, 
it is through this very process that the great ends of improve¬ 
ment are to be attained. Hereafter it will be seen, much 
more clearly than we can see it now, that opinion generates 
knowledge. Like the ethereal waves, whose inconceivable 
rapidity and number are said to impart the sensation of vis¬ 
ion, the undulations of opinion are speeding on to produce 
the perception of truth. They are the infinitely complex and 
delicate movements of that universal Human Mind, whose 
quiescence is darkness, — whose agitation, light. 

To the fit and numerous readers whom we trust 
they will find, these papers are now submitted, in the 
earnest hope that the author will at no distant day 
follow them with some more systematic and rounded 
survey of the same great subject, — the components 
and developments of Christianity. 

W. R. A. 


e 




































































STUDIES OF CHRISTIANITY. 





DISTINCTIVE TYPES OE CHRISTIANITY. 


"V 

Ip unity be the character of truth, no generation was ever 
so far gone in errors as our own: nor is the weariness sur¬ 
prising, with which statesmen and philosophers turn away 
from the Babel of Divinity, and, in despair of scaling the 
heavens, apply themselves to found and adorn the politics of 
this world. . But the confusion of tongues is too positive and 
obtrusive a fact to be escaped by mere retreat: it bids defi¬ 
ance to polite evasion: it pursues life into every public place 
and private haunt; invades the home, the school, the college, 
the court, the legislature; and, besides the problems which it 
fails to solve, constitutes in itself a new one, not undeserving 
the closest study and reflection. To the believers in doctrinal 
finality, who imagine the whole sacred economy to be settled 
by a documentary revelation, the reopening of every question, 
down to the very basis of religious faith, must be an appalling 
phenomenon, charging either failure on the presumed designs 
of God or a traitorous perversity on even the most gifted and 
upright of men. And not a whit better is the conclusion of a 
conceited illuminism, which, either boldly recalling the human 
mind to the sciences of induction, despises all faith as false 
alike; or, conscious at least of its own incompetency, pleases 
itself with a more indulgent scepticism, and accepts them all 
as true. If no better revenge can be taken on pious dogma¬ 
tism than by falling into the cant of an eclectic neutrality or 
an impious despair, there is little encouragement for any liigh- 
1 



2 


DISTINCTIVE TYPES OF CHRISTIANITY. 


minded man to take part against the bigotries of the present 
on behalf of sickly negations in the future. The world is bet¬ 
ter left in the hands of the poorest interpreter of Paul, and 
most degenerate heirs of Augustine and Pascal, than trans¬ 
ferred to the dialectic of Proclus or the materialism of the liv¬ 
ing “ Fondateur de la Religion de VHumanite”* There are 
those, however, who deny that we are left to any such alter¬ 
native ; who cannot conceive that human aspirations after 
divine reality shall for ever pine and sigh in vain; who con¬ 
tend that objective truth in reference to morals and religion 
is attainable, and has been largely attained; — and who, ac¬ 
cordingly, despairing of neither philosophy nor Christianity, 
require only the free intercommunion of the two to appreciate 
the contradictions of the present without foregoing the hope 
of greater unity in the future. The controversies of the hour 
are but ill understood by one who remains enclosed within 
them, and judges them only on their own assumptions. Like 
a village brawl, which, with only the sound of vulgar noise, 
may be the ripe fruit of oppression and the germ of revolu¬ 
tion, they have an assigned place in the unfolding of modern 
civilization; and not till their place is computed in the life of 
the human race, and the law which brings them up in our age 
is observed, can their real significance be apprehended, and 
all anger at their clamorous littleness be lost in hope of their 
ulterior issues. Regarded from this higher point, the surface 
of religious belief in England, at first sight a mere troubled 
fermentation of struggling elements, betrays some organic 
principle of order, and many salient points of promise. 

AVe hazard no theory of religion in saying that there is a 
natural correspondence between the genius of a people and 
the form of their belief. Each mood of mind brings its own 
wants and aspirations, colors its own ideal, and interprets best 
that part of life and the universe with which it is in sympa¬ 
thy. John Knox would have been misplaced in Athens, and 


* The title which Auguste Comte gives himself in his “ Catechisme Posi- 
tiviste.” ■*- Preface, p. xl. 



3 


DISTINCTIVE TYPES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

Tauler could not have lived on the moralism of Ivant. No 
doubt the ultimate seat of human faith lies deep down below 
the special propensities of individuals or tribes, — in a con¬ 
sciousness and faculty common to the race. But ere it comes 
to the surface, and disengages itself in a concrete shape, its 
type and color will be affected by the strata of thought and 
feeling through which it emerges into the light. Without pre¬ 
tending to an exhaustive classification, we find four chief tem¬ 
peraments of mind expressed in the theologies and scepticisms 
of civilized Europe: the quest of physical order , the sense 
of right , the instinct of beauty , and the consciousness of tem¬ 
pestuous impulses carrying the will off its feet. Variously 
blended in the characters of average persons, these tendencies 
are liable to separate their intensities, and severally dominate 
almost alone in minds of great force and periods of special 
action or reaction. Were each left to itself to form its own 
unaided creed, the doctrine of mere Science would be atheis - 
tic; of Conscience, theistic ; of Art, pantheistic; of Passion, 
sacrijicial. The evidence of this distribution of tendencies is 
equally conclusive, whether we look to its rational ground or 
to its historical exemplification; and a few words on each 
head will suffice to clear and justify it. 

Notwithstanding some occasional attempts to exhibit natu¬ 
ral theology as a necessary extension of natural philosophy, it 
is plain that the maxims, which are ultimate for physical Sci¬ 
ence, stop short of contact with Religion; that the final appeal 
of the two is carried to different faculties; and that the scope 
and sphere of the one may be complete without borrowing any 
conception from the other. The assumption, for instance, that 
“ we can know nothing but phenomena ,” directly excludes all 
permanent and eternal Being as the possible object of rational 
thought. And as “phenomena” are apprehensible only by 
the observing faculties, whatever refuses to put in an appear¬ 
ance in their court is nonsuited as an unreality. And again, 
physical knowledge has accomplished its aim, as soon as it can 
predict all the successions that lie within its field of time and 
space; and nowhere in this system of series, nor in the calcu- 


4 


DISTINCTIVE TYPES OF CHRISTIANITY. 


lated forces which yield it to the view, does any divine Person 
look in upon the mind. Whoever, by the restraints of a hypo¬ 
thetical necessity, detains his intellect within nature, debars 
himself ipso facto from any faith that transcends nature, and 
recognizes no reserve of supernatural possibilities, hidden in a 
Mind of which the actual universe is but the finite expression. 
We do not, of course, intend to affirm that scientific culture 
cannot coexist with religious belief; — so preposterous an as¬ 
sertion would be confuted by a manifold experience; — but 
only that, where the canons of inductive knowledge are in¬ 
vested with unconditional universality, and are logically car¬ 
ried out as valid for all thought, they shut the door upon the 
sources of faith. It is the old battle, of which history supplies 
such abundant illustration; which brought Parmenides and 
Protagoras upon the lists at opposite ends on the field of phi¬ 
losophy ; which Bacon profoundly avoided by assigning sepa¬ 
rate empires, without common boundary, to science and relig¬ 
ion ; but which his modern disciples have rasfily renewed, by 
invading the realm left sacred by him. Uneasy relations 
have always subsisted in Christendom between the investiga¬ 
tors of nature and the trustees of the faith; the men of science 
rarely quitting, unless for signs of unequivocal aversion, the 
attitude of polite indifference to the Church; and in their turn 
watched with the jealous eye of sacerdotal vigilance. It is no 
untrue instinct that has hitherto maintained them in this pos¬ 
ture of mutual suspicion: to exchange which for a hearty and 
intelligent reverence for each other is an achievement re¬ 
served for a higher philosophy than we yet possess. 

As Science pays homage to the force of nature , so Con¬ 
science enthrones the law of right. The conscious subject of 
moral obligation feels himself under a rule neither self-im¬ 
posed and fictitious, nor foreign and coercive; — neither a 
home invention nor an outward necessity; — a rule invisible, 
authoritative, awful; carrying with it an alternative irreduci¬ 
ble to the linear dynamics of the physical world ; incapable of 
being felt but by a free mind, or of being given but by an¬ 
other. He is aware that his will follows a call of duty not at 


DISTINCTIVE TYPES OF CHRISTIANITY. 


5 


all as his body adapts itself to the force of gravitation; and as 
within him the conscientious obedience wholly differs from the 
corporeal, so in the universe of realities beyond him does the 
moral legislation differ from the natural, and express the will 
of a person, not a mere constitution of things. No ethical 
conceptions are possible at all, — except as floating shreds of 
unattached thought, — without a religious background; and 
the sense of responsibility, the agony of shame, the inner rev¬ 
erence for justice, first find their meaning and vindication in a 
supreme holiness that rules the world. Nor can any one be 
penetrated with the distinction between right and wrong, with¬ 
out recognizing it as valid for all free beings, and incapable of 
local or arbitrary change. His feeling insists on its perma¬ 
nent recognition and omnipresent sway; and this unity in the 
Moral Law carries him to the unity of the Divine Legislator. 
Theism is thus the indispensable postulate of conscience,— 
its objective counterpart and justification, without which its 
inspirations would be illusions, and its veracities themselves a 
lie. To adduce historical proofs of this conjunction is at once 
difficult and superfluous in a world whose theism is almost all 
of one stock. But it will not be forgotten that Socrates, in 
whom Greek religion culminated, avowedly based his reform 
on the substitution of moral for physical studies. It is unde¬ 
niable too that, in spite of their fatalism, the monotheistic Mo¬ 
hammedans have been surpassed by few nations in their sense 
of truth and fidelity; and that wherever the same type of be¬ 
lief has been approached by Christian sects, the heresy has 
been said to arise from an exaggerated estimate of the moral 
law. 

Art, we have said, is pantheistic. Its aim, often uncon¬ 
sciously present, is to read off the expressiveness of things, 
and find what it is which they would speak with their silent 
look. To its perceptions, form, color, sound, motion, have 
a soul within them whose life and activity they represent: 
and even language, by flinging itself into the mould of rhythm 
and music, acquires, beyond its logical significance, a second 
meaning for the affections. As if waked up and tingling be- 
1 * 


6 DISTINCTIVE TYPES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

neath the artist’s loving gaze, matter lies dull and dead no 
more; opens on him a responding eye; communes with him 
from its steadfast brow; and becomes instinct with grace or 
majesty. Instead of being the drag-weight and opposite of 
spiritual energies, it becomes to him their pliant medium, the 
docile clay for the shapes of finest thought, the brilliant pal¬ 
ette for the spread of inmost feeling. He melts the barrier 
away that hides from mere sense and intellect the interior 
sentiment — the formative idea — of all visible things; and 
his glance of sympathy changes them not less than a burst of 
amber sunrise changes a leaden landscape and picks out the 
freshest smiles. Thus he finds himself in a living universe, 
ever striving to show him a divine beauty that lurks within 
and presses to the surface; and he stands before a curtain 
only half opaque, watching the lights and shadows thrown on 
it from behind by the ceaseless play of infinite thought. Not 
that the interpretation is by any means self-evident, or acces¬ 
sible except to the apprehensive instinct of sympathy. For 
it seems as though no form of being, no object in creation, 
could ever represent completely its own type: something is 
lost from its perfection in the realization; and the actual, 
falling short of the ideal, can give it only to one for whom a 
hint suffices. This conception of the world as an incarnate 
divineness does not, we are well aware, amount to pantheism, 
unless it become all-comprehensive, so as to take in not simply 
physical nature, but the human life and will; and there are 
numbers who are saved from this extreme, either by knowing 
where to draw the lines of philosophical distinction, or by the 
natural force of moral conviction restraining the absolutism of 
imagination. But so far forth as the tendency operates, it 
substitutes for the theistic reverence for a Holy Will the pan¬ 
theistic recognition of a Creative Beauty , and presents God 
to the mind less as the prototype of Conscience than as the 
apotheosis of Genius. The spontaneity of poetic action is 
supposed to illustrate His procedure better than the preferen¬ 
tial decisions of the moral sentiment; and the genesis of what¬ 
ever is good and fair is referred not so much to deliberate 


DISTINCTIVE TYPES OF CHRISTIANITY. 


7 


plan as to the eternal interfusion and circulation, through the 
great whole, of a Divine Essence, which flings off the universe 
and its history as a mere natural language. That this is the 
religion of art, is proved by the literature of every creative pe¬ 
riod, Greek, Italian, or Teutonic; and negatively by the com¬ 
parative absence of artistic feeling and production in ages and 
nations that have most intensified at once the Unity and the 
Personality of God. Beauty was the Bible of Athens; and 
Plato, its devoutest and most comprehensive expounder, shows 
everywhere, in his metaphysics, his morals, and his myths, the 
mould into which its faith inevitably falls. 

In passionate and impulsive natures there is a self-contra¬ 
diction which makes their religious tendency peculiarly diffi¬ 
cult to describe. They are not less conscious than others of 
moral distinctions, and own the sacred authority of the better 
invitation over the worse. Indeed, when surprised into a 
fall, their remorse shares the vehemence of all their emotions, 
and from the black shadow in which they sit, the sanctity of 
the law which they have violated looks ineffably bright; and 
they speak of its holy requirements, and of the infinite purity 
of the Divine Legislator, in tuch fervid tone, that whatever 
else they may endanger, the perfection of God’s character, 
you feel assured, and the obligations of human morality, are 
secure of reverential maintenance. Yet the truth is precisely 
the reverse. At the very moment that the law of duty is 
thus loftily extolled, it is on the point of total subversion; lift¬ 
ed to a height precarious and unreal, it overbalances on the 
other side and disappears. For the very same stormy inten¬ 
sity which makes these men strong to fpel the claim of good, 
makes them weak to obey it. Their personality wants solid¬ 
ity ; and an atmosphere of tempestuous affections sweeps over 
it like a hurricane on water. They can do nothing from out 
of their own resolves, and are for ever drawn or driven from 
the fortress they were not to surrender. What remains for 
them, solicited thus by forces which are an overmatch for their 
just self-reliance ? Is it surprising that they no sooner confess 
how they ought to obey, than they declare that they cannot 


8 


DISTINCTIVE TYPES OF CHRISTIANITY. 


obey ? The thing is a contradiction ; but it all the better for 
this expresses what they are: with their centre of gravity in 
the wrong place, they cannot but hold the truth in unstable 
equilibrium. Repose on contradiction is, however, impossi¬ 
ble ; and the necessary result of these co-existent feelings of 
obligation and incapacity is a substitute for obedience. The 
resort to sacrifice which thus arose expressed no more, prior 
to the Christian era, than the sentiment, “Take this, O 
Lord, ’t is all I have to give ”; and afforded but a fictitious re¬ 
lief to the laboring spirit. It acknowledged and attested the 
incompetency of the will, but made no use of the excess of 
the emotions. It was the Pauline doctrine of faith which first 
turned this great power to account; and virtually said, “Are 
you in slavery because you cannot manage your affections ? 
turn their trust and enthusiasm on Christ in heaven, and let 
them manage you, and you shall be free.” The soul that falls 
in love Avith immortal goodness rises above the region of in¬ 
effectual strife, and spontaneously offers what could never be 
extorted from the will by the lash of self-mortifying resolve. 
This is the truth which underlies the sacrificial doctrine in 
Christian times, — the emancipating power of great trusts and 
high inspirations ; and its very nature indicates its birth from 
impassioned temperaments, and its affinity with their special 
wants. The vicarious sacrifice is a mere plea, an ideal point 
of attraction, for a profound allegiance of heart; Avhich minds 
of this class would hardly yield without an intense appeal to 
their gratitude ; but which, if really awakened by a clear and 
tranquil moral reverence, Avould no less triumph over the 
gravitation of self. .The one needful condition for the re¬ 
demption of these natures is the objective presence and action 
upon them of a divine person to lift them clear out of them¬ 
selves, and render back on the healing breath of trust the 
strength that only pants itself aAvay in feverish effort. Every 
doctrine of sacrifice necessarily contradicts its OAvn premises ; 
because for guilt, which is personal and inalienable, it offers 
a compensation which is foreign, and meets a moral ill with 
an unmoral remedy. True and sound as a mere confession of 


DISTINCTIVE TYPES OF CHRISTIANITY. 


9 


weakness, it runs off from that point into mere confusion and 
morbidness. But add to it the doctrine of faith, and it ac¬ 
quires its proper complement; balances its human disclaimer 
with a divine resource; and instead of sending its captive 
through dark labyrinths of vain experiment, opens a direct 
way from the chambers of humiliation to the prophet’s watch- 
tower of prayer and vision. Without this complement, the 
doctrine created priesthoods; with it, destroys them. With¬ 
out it, men are caught up in their moments of helplessness, 
and handed over to ritual quackeries; with it, they are seized 
in their hour of inspiration, and flung into the arms of God. 
The susceptibility for either treatment depends on the pre¬ 
dominance of impulse and passion over breadth of imagination 
and strength of will. In short, there are minds whose power 
is shed, if we may say so, in /?rotension, precipitated forwards 
in narrow channels with impetuous torrent. There are others 
whose affluence is in extension, and spreads out like a still lake 
to drink in light from the open sky, and reflect the look of 
wide-encircling hills. And there are others yet again, whose 
character is intension, and that move on in full volume, and 
with steady stream of tendency, rising and falling little with 
the seasons, and holding to the limits within which they are 
to go. The faith of the first is sacrificial; of the second, 
pantheistic ; of the third, theistic. 

Of the four cardinal tendencies we have named, the scien¬ 
tific has never been provided for within the interior of Chris¬ 
tianity ; whose organic life and structure are complete without 
it. It remains, therefore, sullenly on the outside, without re¬ 
nouncing at present its atheistic propensions: and the part it 
has played, however important, has been that of external 
check and antagonism, in the assertion of neglected rights of 
knowledge, and slighted interests of mankind. This cannot 
possibly continue for ever; nor is it at all consistent with ex¬ 
perience to suppose, that either of the opponent influences 
will obtain a victory over the other. Their reconcilement, 
through the mediation and within the compass of some third 
and more comprehensive conception, is a task remaining for 


10 


DISTINCTIVE TYPES OF CHRISTIANITY. 


the philosophy and charity of the future. We feel no doubt 
that it will be accomplished; and will spare us that revolution¬ 
ary extermination of theology and metaphysics which is pro¬ 
claimed, on behalf of positive science, by the self-appointed 
Committee of the “ Republique Oecidentale.” The other three 
tendencies early worked their way into the Christian religion, 
and vindicated a place within its organism. Indeed, the his¬ 
torical genesis of the Catholic Church consists of little else, 
on the inner side of dogma and ethics, than the successive and 
successful self-assertion of each of these principles; and, on 
the outer side of ecclesiastical polity, than the construction of 
a social framework which held them in co-existence till the 
sixteenth century. The genius of three distinct peoples con¬ 
spired to fill up the measure of the early faith; and each 
brought with it a separate constituent. The Hebrew believer 
contributed his theistic conscience; the Hellenic, his panthe¬ 
istic speculation; the Romanic, his passionate appropriation 
of redemption by faith. The elements were, from the first, 
mixed and struggling together ; so that the phenomena of no 
period, probably of no place, serve to show them disengaged 
from one another and insulated. But the Ebionitish period, 
with its rigorous monachism, its historical and human 
Christ, its scrupulous asceticism, its sternness against wealth, 
represents the ethical principle in its excess. The Logos idea, 
and indeed the whole development of the Trinitarian doctrine, 
exhibits the effort of the Greek thought to obtain recognition, 
and qualify the Judaic. And the Augustinian theology, 
pleading the wants of fervid natures, on whose surface the 
web of moral doctrines alights only to be shrivelled and dis¬ 
appear, completes the triad of agencies from whose confluence 
the faith of Christendom arose. In the Catholic system the 
three ingredients unite in one composite result; and hence the 
tenacity with which that system keeps possession of the most 
various types of human character, and, baffled by the spirit 
of one age, returns with the reaction of another. The ethical 
feeling finds satisfaction in its theory of human nature; the 
pantheistic, in its scheme of supernatural grace; the sacrifi- 


DISTINCTIVE TYPES OF CHRISTIANITY. 


11 


cial, in its conditions of redemption. Through the realism of 
the mediaeval schools, its eucharistic doctrine, which is only 
the theological side of that philosophical conception, becomes a 
direct transfusion of Hellenic influence into the Church. And 
its faith in perpetual inspiration, in the unbroken chain of 
physical miracle, in the ceaseless mingling of sacramental 
mystery with the very substance of this world, so far softens 
and diffuses the concentrated personality of the Divine Es¬ 
sence, as to indulge the free fancy of art. Nor can we deny 
the same capacity of beauty to its hierarchy of holy natures, 
— from the village saint, through the heavenly angels, to the 
Son of God, — all blended in living sympathies that cross and 
recross the barriers of worlds. This comprehensive adap¬ 
tation to the exigencies of mankind is a reasonable object of 
admiration. But nothing can be more absurd than the appeal 
to it in proof either of preternatural guidance, or of human 
artifice, in the constitutive process of the Roman Church. 
There is nothing very surprising in the fact, that a system 
which is the product of three factors should contain them all. 
No doubt if these factors are, as we contend, primary and 
indestructible features of our unperverted nature, no religion 
can be divine and completely true which refuses to take any 
of them up ; and this one condition of the future faith we may 
learn from the Christendom of the past. The condition, how¬ 
ever, must be satisfied otherwise than by the strange congeries 
of profound truths and puerile fancies which is dignified by 
the name of “ Catholic doctrine.” 

For, be it observed, this system has no intrinsic and neces¬ 
sary unity, which would hold it together when abandoned to the 
free action of the mind, whose requirements it is said to meet. 
It has something for conscience, something for art, something for 
passion, each in its turn; but it is not a whole that can satisfy 
all together. Its contents, gathered by successive experiences, 
cohere through the external grasp of a sacerdotal corporation; 
and if that hand be paralyzed or relaxed, it becomes evident at 
once how little they have grown together. Hence the phenom¬ 
ena of the sixteenth century, whose revolt was the expression, 


12 


DISTINCTIVE TYPES OF CHRISTIANITY. 


not of theological dissent, but of ecclesiastical disgust; and in 
which doctrine only accidentally fell to pieces, because the 
authority that guarded and wielded it became too rotten to be 
believed in. The secondary revolution, however, was incom¬ 
parably more momentous than the primary. The treasured 
seeds that dropped from the shattered casket of the Church 
had to germinate again in the fresh soil of the richer Euro¬ 
pean mind; and the great year of their development is still 
upon its round. The outward dictation of the Apostolic See 
being discarded, it became necessary to find another clew to 
divine truth; and the inner wants of the human soul and the 
passing age came into play, with no restraint within the 
ample scope of Scripture. A reconstitution of Christianity 
began, — on the basis, no doubt, of materials already accumu¬ 
lated, — more eclectic, therefore, and less creative, than in the 
infancy of the religion; but proceeding, nevertheless, by the 
same law, and commencing a similar cycle. The order of 
development in this second life of Christendom has not been 
the same as in the first; but the stages, though transposed, 
do not differ taken one by one. It is only this, — that whilst 
in the formation of the faith the dominant influences were 
Conscience, Art, and Passion, in its Re-formation they are 
Passion, Conscience, Art. At the moment when Luther shat¬ 
tered the fabric of pretended unity, and compelled the husk to 
shed its kernels, the season and the field were unfavorable to 
two out of the three, and they lay dormant till more genial 
times. The moral element had been discredited by the casu¬ 
istry of the confessional, the “ treasure of the Church,” and the 
trade in meritorious works; and, decked in these vile trap¬ 
pings, was flung away in generous disgust. The (Esthetic ele¬ 
ment had become so paganized in Italy, and was so identified 
with the reproduction of the very tastes and vices, the thought 
and style, nay, even the mythology itself, which the primitive 
religion had expelled as the w r ork of demons, that the neAv 
piety shrank from it, and let it alone. In an age when epis¬ 
copates were Avon by an ear for hexameters or a Ciceronian 
Latinity, when priests defended materialism in Tusculan dis- 


DISTINCTIVE TYPES OF CHRISTIANITY. 


13 


putations, when popes frequented the comic theatre and Plau¬ 
tus was acted in the Vatican, when the proceeds of a purga¬ 
torial traffic were spent in destroying ancient basilicas and 
raising heathenish temples over the sepulchres of saints, it was 
inevitable that beauty should become suspected by sanctity. 
There remained, yet unspoiled by the adoption of a corrupt 
generation, the impetuous devotion and tremendous theory of 
Augustine ; and this, accordingly, was the direction in which 
the whole early Reformation advanced. It was not the acci¬ 
dent that Luther was an Augustinian monk, which determined 
the character of his movement. The sickened soul of Europe 
could breathe no other air. Emaciated with the mockery of 
spiritual aliment, revolting at the chopped straw and apples 
of Sodom that had been given for fruit from the tree of life, 
it sighed for escape from this choking discipline into some 
region fresh with the mountain breath of faith and love, and 
not quite barren of “angels’ food.” The burdened moral 
sense, so long deluded and abused, reduced to self-conscious 
dotage by vain penances and vainer promises, flung away all 
belief in itself, asked leave to lay its freedom down, and went 
into captivity to Christ. So exclusively did the feeling of 
the time flow into this channel, that no doctrine which had an 
ethical groundwork, or attempted to soften in the least the 
implacable hostility of nature and grace, obtained any suc¬ 
cess ; while every enthusiastic excess of the anti-catholic ideas 
spread like wildfire. The irreproachable innocence and piety 
of the Salzburg Gartner-briider did nothing to save them 
from quick martyrdom to their Ebionitish faith; while the 
atrocities and ravings of the Anabaptists of Munster scarcely 
sufficed to stop the triumph of their hideous kingdom of the 
saints. The movement of the brave Zwingli, earlier and 
more moderate than either Luther’s or Calvin’s, was easily 
restrained by them within the narrowest range, whilst the 
Genevan Reformer, cautious and ungenial, had but to collect 
his logical fuel, and kindle the terrible fire of his dogma, and 
it spread from the icy chambers of his own nature and wrapt 
whole kingdoms in its flames. That men without passion or 


14 


DISTINCTIVE TYPES OF CHRISTIANITY. 


pathos themselves, who do their work by force of intellect 
and will, should be successful disseminators of a doctrine that 
can live in no cool air, only shows how wide was the prepara¬ 
tion of mind, and how the coming of this time fulfilled the 
long desire of nations. 

The first stage, then, of the new development of Christian¬ 
ity was its Puritan period. The natural perdition of man, 
the radical corruption of his will, the religious indifference of 
all his states and actions, and the consequent worthlessness 
of his morality, except for civil uses and social police, con¬ 
stitute the fundamental assumptions of the system. From 
this basis of despair its doctrine of atonement comes to the 
rescue. The obedience of Christ is accepted in place of that 
which men cannot render, and his sacrifice instead of the 
penalty they deserve. Not, however, for all, but for those 
alone who may appropriate the deliverance by an act of faith, 
and present the merits of Christ as their offering to God, with 
full assurance of their sufficiency. Nothing but a divine and 
involuntary conversion can generate this faith, which follows 
no predisposition from the antecedent life, but the inscrutable 
decree of Heaven. Once transferred from the state of nature 
into that of grace, the disciple becomes, through the Holy 
Spirit, a new creature; is conscious of a sacred revolution in 
his tastes and affections ; gives evidence of this by good 
works, which, now purified in their principle, are no longer 
unacceptable to God; and knows that, though he is still 
liable to the sins, he is redeemed from the penalties, of a son 
of Adam. The Church is the body of the converted, and 
while the Sacrament of Baptism initiates the candidate, and 
provisionally secures him, the Communion seals his adoption 
afterwards; the efficacy of both being conditional on the inner 
faith of the participant. The intense and unmediated antith¬ 
esis of nature and grace, and the gulf, impassable except by 
miracle, between their two spheres, may be regarded as the 
most characteristic feature of this scheme. Its text-book 
contains the Pauline Epistles, and opens most readily at the 
Romans or Galatians ; and its favorite writers are Augustine, 


DISTINCTIVE TYPES OF CHRISTIANITY. 


15 


Luther, Calvin, and Edwards. With vast internal differences 
in their particular conceptions of Christian truth and of eccle¬ 
siastical government, the so-called Evangelical sects retain the 
impress of their common origin in the dearth of any ethical 
or aesthetic element in their religion. 

From this alone must have resulted the fact which a plu¬ 
rality of causes has concurred in producing ; viz. that the 
Reformation soon (within a century and a half) reached its 
apparent limit of extent, and propagated itself only internally 
by further evolutions of thought. It had taken up and ex¬ 
hausted the class of minds to which it was specially adapted; 
and after appropriating these, found itself arrested. Under 
the impulse of a newly-awakened piety men are disposed to 
feel that they cannot attribute too much to God; and there 
will always be large numbers who, from the absorbing inten¬ 
sity of religious sentiment, or the dominance of predestinarian 
theory, or the ill balance of partial cultivation, abdicate all 
personal power of good in favor of irreversible decrees. But 
as the tension relaxes or the culture enlarges, the moral in¬ 
stincts reassert their existence; and the monstrous distortions 
incident to any theory which denies their authority become 
too repulsive to be borne. Hence a reaction, in which the 
natural conscience takes the lead, and insists on obtaining that 
reconciliation with God which has already been conquered for 
the affections. Men in whom the sense of right and wrong 
is deep cannot divest themselves of reverence for it as au¬ 
thoritative and divine; nor can they truly profess that it is to 
them an empty voice, which, venerable as it sounds, they are 
never able to obey. They know what a difference it makes 
to them, in the whole peace and power of their being, whether 
they are faithful or whether they are false; that this differ¬ 
ence belongs alike to their state of nature and their state of 
grace; that it is as little possible to withhold admiration from 
the magnanimity of the Pagan Socrates as from that of the 
Christian Paul; and that the sentiment which compels homage 
to both is the same that looks up with trust and worship to the 
justice and holiness of God: how, then, can they consent to draw 


16 


DISTINCTIVE TYPES OF CHRISTIANITY. 


an unreal line of impassable separation between ethical quali¬ 
ties before conversion and the very same qualities after, and 
abrogate in the one case the moral distinctions which become 
valid in the other? The two lives, — of earth and heaven; 
the two minds, — human and divine ; the two states, — nature 
and grace; which it is the impulse of enthusiasm to contrast, 
it is the necessity of conscience to unite. When Luther first 
blew up the sacerdotal bridge which had given a path across 
to the steps of centuries, the boldness of the deed and the 
inspiration of the time lightened the feet of men, and enabled 
them to spring over with him on the wing of faith. But 
when the van had passed, and the more equable and dis¬ 
ciplined ranks of another generation were brought to the 
brink, there seemed a needless rashness in the attempt, and 
foundations were discovered for a structure based on the rock 
of nature, and making one province of both worlds. Even 
Melancthon, long as he yielded to his leader’s more powerful 
will, could not permanently acquiesce in the complete extinc¬ 
tion of human responsibility; and vindicated for the soul a 
voluntary co-operation with divine grace. This semi-Pelagian 
example rapidly spread; first among the later Lutherans, 
especially of Brunswick and Hanover; next into the school 
of Leyden; and finally into the Church and universities of 
England. Quick to seize the reaction in the temper of the 
times, the Jesuits put themselves at the head of the same 
tendency in their own communion; defended against the Jan- 
senists a doctrine of free-will beyond even the limits of Catho¬ 
lic orthodoxy; upheld Molina against Augustine, as among 
the Protestants Episcopius was gaining upon Calvin. Among 
patriotic theologians the authority of the Latin Church gave 
way in favor of the early Christian apologists and Greek 
Fathers, who knew nothing of the scheme of decrees. Di¬ 
vinity, under the guidance of More and Cudworth, no longer 
disdained to replenish her oil and revive her flame from the 
lamp of Athenian philosophy. And the conception of a uni¬ 
versal natural law was elaborately worked out by Grotius. 
As the sixteenth century was the period of dogmatic theology, 


DISTINCTIVE TYPES OF CHRISTIANITY. 


17 


the seventeenth was that of ethical philosophy; the whole 
modern history of which lies mainly within that limit and half 
a century lower; and conclusively attests the decline of a 
scheme of belief incompatible with the very existence of such 
a science. When the Protestantism which had produced a 
Farel, a Beza, and a Whitgift, offered as its representatives 
Locke and Limborch, Tillotson and Butler, the nature of the 
change which had come over it declares itself. It was the 
revolt of moral sentiment against a doctrine that outraged it, 
— the re-development, under new conditions, of the ethical 
principle which had fallen neglected from the broken seed- 
vessel of the Catholic faith. 

The second season of the Reformation, though treated now 
wdth unmerited disparagement, was not less worthy of admira¬ 
tion than the first. High-Churchmen may be ashamed of an 
archbishop who proposed a scheme of comprehension; Evan¬ 
gelicals, of a preacher who applauded the Socinians; and 
Coleridgians, of a theologian who was no deeper in metaphys¬ 
ics than the “ Grotian divines ”; but neither the Erastianism, 
the charity, nor the common sense of a Tillotson would be at 
all unsuitable at this moment to a church openly torn by dis¬ 
sensions and really held together only by dependence on the 
state. It has been a current opinion, perseveringly propa¬ 
gated by adherents of the Geneva theology, that the spread of 
Arminian sentiments was equivalent to a religious decline, 
and concurrent with the growth of a worldly laxity and selfish 
indifference of character. The allegation is absolutely false. 
In literature, in personal characteristics, and in public life, the 
Latitude-men and their associates in belief bear honorable 
comparison with their more rigorous forerunners. There is 
not only less of passionate intolerance, but a nobler freedom 
from an equivocal prudence, in the great writers of the second 
period, than in the Reformers of the first: and there is more 
to touch the springs of disinterestedness and elevation of mind 
in Cudworth and Clarke than in Calvin and Beza. Nor did 
the return of ethical theory weaken the sources of religious 
action. The very enterprises in which evangelical zeal most 
2 * 


18 


DISTINCTIVE TYPES OF CHRISTIANITY. 


rejoices, — missions to the heathen, and the diffusion of the 
Scriptures, — were not only prosecuted but set on foot in new 
directions and with more powerful instrumentalities, in the 
very midst of this period, and by the very labors ot its most 
distinguished philosophers. The Society for the Diffusion of 
Christian Knowledge, and the Society for the Propagation of 
the Gospel in Foreign Parts, were both born with the eigh¬ 
teenth century; and while the latter addressed itself to the 
natives and slaves of the American provinces, the former first 
made the Scriptures known on the Coromandel coast. It was 
Boyle who, of all men of his age, displayed the most generous 
zeal for the multiplication of the sacred writings, himself pro¬ 
curing their translation into four or five languages. For thirty 
years he was governor of a missionary corporation. Yet the 
complexion of his theology is sufficiently indicated by the fact 
that he bought up Pococke’s Arabic translation of Grotius 
(De Veritate Christiana} Religionis), and was at the cost of 
its wide distribution in the East. And who that has ever 
read it can forget Swift’s letter to the Irish viceroy (Lord 
Carteret), introducing Bishop Berkeley (then Dean of Der¬ 
ry), and his project for resigning his preferment at home in 
order that, on a stipend of £ 100 a year, he might devote him¬ 
self to the conversion of the American Indians? The imper¬ 
turbable patience with which the good Dean prosecuted his 
object, the self-devotion with which he embarked in it his 
property and life, the gratefulness with which he accepted 
from the government the promise of a grant, and the treach¬ 
ery which broke the promise, and after seven years compelled 
his return, make up a story unrivalled for its contrast of 
saintly simplicity and ministerial bad faith. These and simi¬ 
lar features of the time superfluously refute the arbitrary and 
arrogant assumption, that no piety can be living and profound 
except that which disbelieves all natural religion, no gospel 
holy which does not renounce the moral law, no faith prolific 
in works unless it begins with despising them. 

There was, however, still a defect in this gospel of con¬ 
science. Regarding the world and life as the object of a 


DISTINCTIVE TYPES OF CHRISTIANITY. 


19 


divine administration, and seeking to interpret them by a 
scheme of final causes, it was wholly occupied with the con¬ 
ception of God as proposing to himself certain ends, and ar¬ 
ranging the means for their accomplishment. In this light 
lie is a Being with moral preconceptions and an economy 
for bringing them to pass. Everything is for a purpose, and 
subsists for the sake of what is ulterior, and forms part of a 
mechanism working out a prescribed problem. The tendency 
of this way of thinking will inevitably be, to hunt for provi¬ 
dences. These the narrow mind will place in the incidents 
of individual life; the comprehensive intellect, in the laws and 
relations pf the universe; not perhaps in either case without 
some danger from human egotism of referring too much to the 
good and ill which is relative to man. The infinite perfec¬ 
tions of God will be concentrated, so to speak, too much in 
the notion of His will, and the powers which subserve its 
designs; and will in consequence be as much misapprehended 
as would be our own nature by an observer assuming that we 
put forth all its life and phenomena on purpose . Indeed, the 
exclusive and unbalanced ascendency of the moral faculty 
tempts a man to fancy this sort of existence the only right one 
for himself; to suspect every flow of unwatched feeling, and 
call himself to account for the burst of ringing laughter, or the 
surprise of sudden tears, and aim at an autocratic command of 
his own soul. It is not wonderful that his ideal of human 
character should reappear in his representation of the Divine. 
The error deforms his faith as much as it tends to stiffen and 
constrict his life. Leading him always to ask what a thing is 
for , it hinders him from seeing what it is; in search of the 
motive , he misses the look ; and his interest in it being transi¬ 
tive, he sinks into it with no sympathy on its own account. 
This is only to say, in other words, that his prepossession de¬ 
tains him from the artistic contemplation of objects and 
events; for while it is the business of science to inquire their 
origination , and of morals to follow their drift , it remains for 
art to appreciate their nature. To feel the type of thought 
which they express, to recognize the idea which they invest 


20 


DISTINCTIVE TYPES OP CHRISTIANITY. 


with form, the mind must rest upon them, not as products or 
as instruments, but as realities; and their significance must 
not be imposed upon them, but read off from them. The 
meaning which art detects in life and the world is not a pur¬ 
pose, but a sentiment; in its view the present attitudes and 
development of things are rather the out-coming of an inner 
feeling than the tools of a remoter end. To find room for this 
mode of conception something must be added to the ethical 
representation of God. He must be regarded as not always 
and throughout engaged in processes of intention and volition, 
but as having, around this moral centre, an infinite atmos¬ 
phere of creative thought and affection, which, like, the native 
inspirations of a pure and sublime human soul, spontaneously 
flow out in forms of beauty, and movements of rhythm, and a 
thousand aspects of divine expression. Religion demands the 
admission of this free element: and without it, will cease to 
speak home to men of susceptible genius and poetic nature, 
and must limit itself more and more to the fanatical minds 
that have too little regulation, and the moral that have too 
much. A God who offers terms of communion only to the 
passionate and to the conscientious, will not touch the springs 
of worship in perceptive and meditative men. Their prayer 
is less to know the published rules than to overhear the lonely 
whispers of the Eternal Mind, to be at one with His immedi¬ 
ate life in the universe, and to shape or sing into articulate 
utterance the silent inspirations of which all existence is full. 
Their peculiar faculties supply them with other interests than 
about their sins, their salvation, and their conscience; they 
feel neither sufficiently guilty, nor sufficiently anxious to be 
good, to make a religion out of the one consciousness or the 
other; but if, indeed, it be God that flashes on them in so 
many lights of solemn beauty from the face of common things, 
that wipes off sometimes the steams of custom from the win¬ 
dow of the soul, and surprises it with a presence of tenderness 
and mystery, — if the tension of creative thought in themselves, 
which can rest in nothing imperfect, yet realize nothing per¬ 
fect, be an unconscious aspiration towards Him, — then there is 


DISTINCTIVE TYPES OF CHRISTIANITY. 


21 


a way of access to their inner faith, and a temple pavement 
on which they will consent to kneel. It is, we believe, the in¬ 
ability of Protestantism, in either of its previous forms, to 
meet this order of wants, that has reduced it to its state of 
weakness and discredit; and the struggle of thought, charac¬ 
teristic of the present century, is an unconscious attempt to 
supply the defect, and to vindicate, for the third element of 
Catholic Christianity, the possibility of development in the 
open air of Protestant belief. The change began, like both 
of the earlier ones, in Germany; and it was from Plato that 
Schleiermacher learned where the weakness of Christian dog¬ 
ma lay, and in what field of thought he might create a diver¬ 
sion from the disastrous assaults of French materialism, and 
restore the balance of the fight. An Hellenic spirit was in¬ 
fused into the scientific theology of the Continent, and has 
never ceased to prevail there, though Aristotle has long suc¬ 
ceeded to Plato as the channel of influence. When Hegel, 
long the rival of Schleiermacher, triumphed over him, not only 
in the coteries of Berlin, but in the schools of Germany, he no 
doubt turned the philosophy which had been invoked to pre¬ 
serve the faith into a dialectic, at whose magic touch it deli¬ 
quesced ; and no one who has followed the application of his 
principles to history and dogma can be surprised at the antip¬ 
athy they awaken in the Church. But it would be a mistake 
to suppose that the step into Pantheism was made by Hegel, 
and that the opposing theologians raised up by the great 
preacher of Berlin occupy in this respect any different 
ground. Since the time of Jacobi theism proper has not 
been heard of in Germany: the very writers who mean to 
defend it, surrender it in the disguise of their definition of per¬ 
sonality ; and so steeped is the whole national mind in the 
colors of Hellenic thought, that from Neander to Strauss can 
be found, in our deliberate judgment, only different shades of 
the same pantheistic conception. What does this denote but 
a universal sigh after a God, who shall be neither a Jehovah, 
a Judaic avroKparap , nor a redeeming Deus ex machina , super¬ 
vening upon the theatre of history, but a living and energizing 


22 


DISTINCTIVE TYPES OF CHRISTIANITY. 


Spirit, quickening the very heart of to-day, and whispering 
round the dome of Herschel’s sky not less than in the third 
story of Paul’s heaven ? In some this feeling breaks out in 
devilish defiance, as in the unhappy Heinrich Heine’s saying, 
“ I am no child, I do not want a Heavenly Father any more”: 
in others it breathes out, as with Novalis, in a tender mysti¬ 
cism, and is traceable by the reverent footfall and uncovered 
head with which they pace, as in a cathedral, the solemn aisles 
of life and nature. The expression of this tendency has 
passed into the literature of our own language, and every 
year is tinging it more and more with its characteristic hues. 
Emerson affords the purest and most unmixed example ; but 
perhaps the earlier writings of Carlyle, — before the divine 
thirst had advanced so much into a human rabies , — and more 
especially his Sartor Mesa.rtus , may be taken as the real gos¬ 
pel of this sentiment. The intense operation of these essays, 
so entirely alien to the traditions of English thought and taste, 
is an evidence of something more than the genius of their au¬ 
thors : it is proof of a certain combustible state of the English 
mind, prepared by drought and deadness to burst into the 
flame of this new worship. This feeling, diffused through the 
very air of the time, has unmistakably evinced its essential 
identity with the instinct of art; in part, by a direct affluence 
and excellence of production unknown to the preceding age, 
but still more, in the wide extension of an appreciating love 
for the creations of artistic genius. The melancholy prophets 
who see in this spreading susceptibility only a morbid symp¬ 
tom of decadent civilization, are misled, we hope, by imperfect 
historical parallels. The flower, no doubt, both of Athenian 
and of Italian culture, was most brilliant just before it drooped. 
But the soil which bore it, and the elements that surrounded 
it, had no essential resemblance to the conditions of modem 
English society, in which, above all, there are the unex¬ 
hausted juices of a moral faith and a strenuous habit, not stim¬ 
ulant perhaps of hasty growth, but giving hardihood against 
the open air and the natural seasons. 

By the rules of technical theology, it may appear strange 


DISTINCTIVE TYPES OF CHRISTIANITY. 


23 


to reckon the turn from theism to pantheism as a third stage 
of the Reformation ; as if it could be at all included in the in¬ 
terior history of Christianity, instead of being treated as a 
direct apostasy. And it is in reality a very serious question, 
whether, without unfaithfulness to its essential character, the 
Christian religion can domesticate within it this new action of 
thought, or must from the first visit it with unqualified excom¬ 
munication. On the one hand, nothing can be more absurd 
than to suppose that a faith of Hebrew origin, a faith whose 
very hypothesis is sin, and whose aspiration is moral perfect¬ 
ness, can ever be reconciled with a thorough-going pantheism. 
On the other hand, nothing can be more gratuitous than to 
assume that the feeling which, on getting the whole mind to 
itself, generates a pantheistic scheme, has no legitimate exer¬ 
cise, and gains its indulgence altogether at the expense of 
Christian truth. If we mistake not, the pith of the matter 
lies in a small compass. Let Christian Theism keep Morals , 
and Pantheism may have Nature. This rule is no mere com¬ 
promise or coalition of incongruous elements, but is founded, 
we are convinced, on distinctions real and eternal. So long 
as a holy will is left to God, and a power committed to man, 
free to sustain relations of trust and responsibility, room re¬ 
mains for all the conditions of Christianity, and the field be¬ 
yond may be open to the range of mystic perception, and 
railed off for the sacrament of beauty. But whether this or 
any other be the just partition of territory between the two 
claimants, partition there must be, for the real truth of things 
must correspond, not to the hypothesis of any single human 
faculty, but to harmonized postulates of all. It is not surpris¬ 
ing that, on its first re-birth, the gospel of nature should deny 
the gospel of duty, or so take it up into its own fine essence 
as to volatilize all its substance away. This is but the natural 
revenge taken for past neglect, and the needful challenge to 
future attention. Each one of the three developments has in 
its turn run out beyond the limits of the Christian faith, and 
yet, hitherto, each has established a place within it. The He¬ 
gelian, or Emersonian, type of the third period is but the cor- 


24 


DISTINCTIVE TYPES OF CHRISTIANITY. 


responding phenomenon to the Antinomianism of the first, and 
the Deism of the second. And as these have passed away, 
after surrendering into the custody of Christendom the princi¬ 
ples that gave them strength, so will the Pantheism of to-day, 
when it has provided for the safe-keeping of its charge, and 
seen the Church complete its triad of Faith, Holiness, and 
Beauty. 

This question, however, will be asked: If the Reformation 
only repeats, with some transposition, the cycle of the primi¬ 
tive development, how are we the better for having thus to do 
our work again ? Are we to end where the sixteenth century 
began, and to reproduce the Catholicism which was then re¬ 
solved into its elements ? And does some fatal necessity doom 
us to this wearisome periodicity ? Not in the least. How¬ 
ever little the seeds may be able to transgress the limits of 
species, and may remain indistinguishable from millennium to 
millennium, the conditions of growth are so different as practi¬ 
cally to cancel the identity in the result. Taken even one by 
one, the modern forms of doctrine are far nobler than their 
early prototypes. The narrow Ebionitism of the original 
Church is not comparable, as an expression of the conscience, 
with the moral philosophy of Butler; and the Greek element 
of thought, flowing by Berlin, has entered the Church in 
deeper channels than when infiltrating through the theosophy 
of Alexandria. It is only in relation to the passionate ele¬ 
ment that the doubt can be raised, whether we have gained 
in truth and grandeur by passing the religion of Augustine 
through the minds of the modern reformers; and whether the 
Jansenists within the Church do not exhibit a higher phase of 
character than the Huguenots without it. But at any rate, 
the modern development, taken as a whole, is secure of an in¬ 
ner unity and completeness which before has been unattained. 
It is an obvious, yet little noticed, consequence of the inven¬ 
tion of printing, that no one mood of feeling or school of 
thought can tyrannize over a generation of mankind, and 
sweep all before it, as of old; and then again, with change in 
the intellectual season, rot utterly away, and give place to a 


DISTINCTIVE TYPES OF CHRISTIANITY. 


25 


successor no less absolute. Generations and ages now live in 
presence of each other; the impulse of the present is re¬ 
strained by the counsels of the past, and, in fighting for the 
throne of the human mind, finds it not only strong in living 
prepossession, but guarded by shadowy sentinels, encircled by 
a band of immortals. Hence the history of ideas can never 
be again so wayward and fitful as it was in the first centuries 
of our era; losing all interest at one period in the questions 
which had maddened the preceding; for a time covered all 
over with the pale haze of Byzantine metaphysics, and then 
suffused with red heats of African enthusiasm. New truth 
can no longer forget the old, and thrive wholly at its expense, 
or even make a compact with it to take turn and turn about, 
but must find an organic relation with it, so as to be its en¬ 
largement rather than its rival. The modem moralist already 
understands Augustine better than did the old Pelagians; 
“Evangelical” teachers begin to insist on Christian ethics; 
and the increasing disposition, even in heterodox persons, to 
dwell on the Incarnation as the central point of faith, shows 
how credible and welcome becomes the notion of the union of 
human with divine, and of the moral manifestation of God in 
the life and soul of man. The time, we trust, is gone, for the 
merely linear advancement of the European mind, with all its 
action and reaction propagated downwards, and wasting centu¬ 
ries on phenomena that might co-exist. Henceforth it may 
open out in all dimensions at once, and fill, as its own for 
ever, the whole space of true thought into which its past in¬ 
crements have borne it. Sects, no doubt, and schools, will 
continue to arise on the outskirts of the intellectual realm, 
possessed by partial inspirations; but the world’s centre of 
gravity will be more and more occupied by minds that can at 
once balance and retain these marginal excesses, that can 
round off the sphere by inner force of reason, and, dispensing 
with the outer mould of sacerdotal compression, let the tides 
flow free, and the winds blow strong, without alarm for the 
eternal harmony. This is the form in which nature will re¬ 
store, and God approve, a Catholic consent. 

3 


26 


DISTINCTIVE TYPES OF CHRISTIANITY. 


The idea we have endeavored to give of the genesis of 
Christian doctrine, and the law of its vicissitudes, is offered 
only as conveniently distributing the subjective sources of 
faith. It cannot be applied to the phenomena of particular 
countries apart from ample historical knowledge of the con¬ 
current social and political conditions, without which the most 
accurate clews to the natural history of thought can only mis¬ 
lead as the interpreter of concrete events. When, for instance, 
we look around us at home, and seek for the English repre¬ 
sentatives of the several tendencies explained above, we may, 
no doubt, find them here and there, but they are so far from 
exhausting the facts of our time, that some of the most con¬ 
spicuous parties — as the Anglicans — seem provided with no 
place at all. The obscurity first begins to clear away when 
we remember that in England Schism went before Reforma¬ 
tion. The aim of Henry VIII. was simply to detach and 
nationalize the Church in his dominions; to give it insular 
integrity instead of provincial dependence; and could this 
have been done without meddling with the system of Catholic 
doctrine at all, the scheme of faith would have been preserved 
entire. While Luther and the Continental opponents of Rome 
were faithful to the idea of the unity of Christendom, and 
were calling out for a general council to restore it by a 
verdict on doubtful points of faith, the English monarch, 
undisturbed by doubt or scruple, broke off from Rome, and 
destroyed the traditions of centralization by taking the ecclesi¬ 
astic jurisdiction into his own hands and stopping its passage 
of the seas. In the new movement of the time, England 
tended to become a petty papacy, still unreformed; Europe 
sought a universal church reformed. Neither aim admitted 
of realization. To repudiate the supreme pontiff, and substi¬ 
tute a civil head, involved a fatal breach in the sacerdotal 
system, and carried with it inevitable departures from the 
integrity of Catholic dogma; so that reformation was found 
inseparable from schism. And when no council, acknowledged 
as universal, was called to give authoritative settlement, ar¬ 
rangements ad interim became consolidated, provisional rights 


DISTINCTIVE TYPES OF CHRISTIANITY. 


27 


grew into prescriptive; with the spectacle of variety, and 
the taste of freedom, the idea of unity faded away, till 
the co-existence of two churches within one land and one 
Christendom passed into a necessity, and reformation proved 
impossible without a schism. But, notwithstanding this par¬ 
tial approximation of the English and the Continental move¬ 
ments, the traces remain indelible that their point of departure 
was from opposite ends. In its origin and earliest traditions, 
in the basis of its constitution and worship, the Church of 
England has nothing whatever to do with Protestantism; it 
is but the Westminster Catholic Church instead of the Roman 
Catholic Church. Authoritative doctrine, sacramental grace, 
sacerdotal mediation, are all retained; and throughout the 
whole of Henry’s reign, while the new laws were working 
themselves into habits, the seven sacraments, the communion 
in one kind, the Ave Maria, the invocation of saints, with the 
doctrines of transubstantiation and purgatory, remained within 
the circle of recognized orthodoxy. The impelling and regu¬ 
lative idea of the whole change was that of a nationalization 
of Catholicism. This original ascendency of the national over 
the theological feeling was never lost; and though channels 
were more and more opened, through the sympathies of exiles 
and the intercourse of scholars, for the infusion of Continen¬ 
tal notions, yet the form given to the Church rendered it not 
very susceptible to the new learning; whose admission, so far 
as it took place, was rather induced by political conception 
than made in the interests of universal truth. The present 
Anglicans represent the first type of the English schism ; 
and the High Church in general embodies the distinguishing 
national sentiment of the Reformation in this country, as com¬ 
pared with the cosmopolitan character of the Continental re¬ 
ligious change. Doctrine is universal, administration and 
jurisdiction are local. Where the former becomes the bond 
of sympathy, as among the Evangelic Protestants, it unites 
men together by ties that are irrespective of the limits of 
country, and subordinates special patriotisms to the interests 
of a more comprehensive fraternity. Where the latter be- 


28 


DISTINCTIVE TYPES OF CHRISTIANITY. 


come the objects of zeal, a flavor of the soil mingles itself 
with the sentiments of honor, and a peculiar loyalty concen¬ 
trates itself on the inner circles of duty, often with the nar¬ 
rowest capacity of diffusion beyond. Hence the intensely 
English feeling which has always prevailed among the paro¬ 
chial— especially the rural— clergy of the Establishment, and 
the people who form their congregations. They constitute 
the very core of our insular society, and the retaining centre 
of our historical characteristics. Their admirations, their 
prejudices, their virtues, their ambitions, are all national. 
Their interest in dogma is not intellectually active, or pro¬ 
vocative of any proselyting zeal, and is subservient to the 
practical aim of giving territorial action to the religious in¬ 
stitutions under their charge. Their dealings are less with 
the individual’s solitary soul, than with the several social 
classes in their mutual relations; and to mediate between 
the gentry and the poor, to keep in order the school, the 
workhouse, and the village charities, — not forgetting the 
obligation to ward off Methodists and voluntaries,* — consti¬ 
tute the approved circle of clerical duties. Their very an¬ 
tipathies, unlike those of Protestant zealots, are less theo¬ 
logical than political; they hate Roman Catholics chiefly as 
a sort of foreigners , who have no proper business here, and 
Dissenters as a sort of rebels , who create disturbance with 
their discontents ; and were old England well rid of them 
both, the heart of her citizenship, they believe, would be 


* The zest with which this ecclesiastical garrison-duty is sometimes per¬ 
formed, hardly comports with the traditional dignity of the Anglican gentle¬ 
man and scholar. We remember an incident which occurred in a village 
situated among the hills of one of our northern dioceses. On a fine sum¬ 
mer evening we had gone, at the close of the afternoon service, for a stroll 
through the fields overlooking the valley. When we had walked half a mile 
or so, an extraordinary din arose from the direction of the village, sounding 
like nothing human or instrumental, larynx, catgut, or brass, though occa¬ 
sionally mingled with an undeniable note from some shouting Stentor. It 
was evident, through the trees, that a crowd was collected on the village green; 
and not less so, that a farmer and his wife, who were looking on from a stile 
hard by, understood the meaning of the scene below. On asking what all 
the hubbub was about, we were told by the good woman: “ It’s all of our 





DISTINCTIVE TYPES OF CHRISTIANITY. 


29 


sounder. They stand, indeed, in a curious position, pledged 
to hold a proud Anglican isolation between two cosmopolitan 
interests, — the Popish theocracy and the Evangelical dogma, 
— refusing obedience to Rome, yet declining the alliance of 
foreign Protestants. Their enmity to the Papal system is 
quite a different sentiment from that which animates Exeter 
Hall; they do not deny the absolute legitimacy of the elder 
corporation in general, but only its relative legitimacy here; 
and Scottish ravings against it as “ Babylon ” and “ Anti¬ 
christ ” offend them more than the confessional and the mass. 
Twice in their history — under the Stuarts and in our own 
day — have they seemed to forget their destiny, and make 
overtures to the Vatican; in both instances it was when Pu¬ 
ritanism had threatened to take possession of the Church, and 
reduce it to a federal member of an Evangelical alliance; 
and if its separate integrity were in peril, they had rather 
fling it back into the Apostolic monarchy, than enroll it in the 
Genevan league. But the first real sight of danger from 
the Papal side has dissipated this reactionary inclination, and 
rekindled the instinct of local independence. Thus, in our 
Church, ideal interests and purely religious conceptions have 
held the second place to a predominating nationalism. The 
Church has embodied and handed down the leading sentiment 
of the Tudor times; and though not guiltless of share in many 
a Stuart treachery, and often cruel to the stiff-necked recu¬ 
sant, has, on the whole, been true to the English feeling, that 


parson, that’s banging out the Methody wi’ the tae-board.” Being cu¬ 
rious in ecclesiastical researches, we hastened down the hill, in spite of the 
repulsion of increasing noise. On one side of the green was a deal table, 
from which a field-preacher was holding forth with passionate but fruitless 
energy; for on the other side, and at the back of the crowd, was the paro¬ 
chial man of God, who had issued from his parsonage, armed with its largest 
tea-tray and the hall-door key, and was battering off the Japan in the ser¬ 
vice of orthodoxy. No military music could more effectually neutralize the 
shrieks of battle. The more the evangelist bellowed, the faster went the 
parish gong. It was impossible to confute such a “ drum ecclesiastic.” 
The man was not easily put down; but the triumph was complete; and the 
“ Methody’s ” brass was fairly beaten out of the field by the Churchman’s 
tin. 

* 


3 



so 


DISTINCTIVE TYPES OF CHRISTIANITY. 


the Pope was too great a priest, and Calvin too long a 
preacher. 

The reason then is evident why the Church of England 
cannot be referred to any of the heads of classification we 
have given; neither coinciding with Romanism, nor exem¬ 
plifying distinctively any of the tendencies springing succes¬ 
sively out of the disintegration of Catholic dogma. It arose 
out of an ecclesiastical revolt; other communions, out of a 
theological aspiration. Its original conception involved no 
serious modification of belief, no invention or recovery of 
strange usages, but a mere separation of the island branch 
from the Roman stem, that it might strike root and be as a 
native tree of life. The first alterations in doctrine were 
slight, and merely incidental to this primary end: and the 
whole amount of change, instead of being determined by the 
intellectual dictatorship of a Luther or a Calvin, was the il¬ 
logical result of social forces, seeking the equilibrium of prac¬ 
tical compromise. The phenomenon therefore which we ob¬ 
served in the elder Church is repeated in this younger offshoot: 
the several elements of faith co-exist (though in greatly spoiled 
proportions) without unity or natural coherence; and the 
English Church, as the depository of a creed, occupies no 
place in the history of the human mind: its individual great 
men must be put here or there in the records of thought, with¬ 
out regard to the accident of their ecclesiastical position. The 
one real idea which has permanently inspired its clergy and 
supporters is that of nationalism in religion. To the time of 
the Restoration they attempted, since then they have pretended, 
to represent the nation in its faith and worship. Once, their 
aim appeared to be a noble possibility, struggling still and un¬ 
realized, but unrefuted. Now, thousands of Non-conformist 
chapels proclaim its meaning gone, and its language an affec¬ 
tation and an insolence. The English Church has become an 
outer reality without an inner idea. 

In contrast with the insular feeling predominant in the 
English schism, we have placed the cosmopolitan zeal of the 
foreign Puritanism. With this, however, was combined the 



DISTINCTIVE TYPES OF CHRISTIANITY. 


31 


very opposite pole of sentiment, — a certain egoism and lone¬ 
liness in religion, from which have flowed some of the most im¬ 
portant characteristics of Protestantism. Having flung away, 
as miserable quackeries, the hierarchical prescriptions for souls 
oppressed with sin, Luther fell back upon an act of subjective 
faith in place of the Church’s objective works. For the cor¬ 
poration he substituted the individual: whom he put in im¬ 
mediate, instead of mediate, relation with Christ and God. 
The Catholic’s unbloody sacrifice had no efficacy, no existence, 
without the priest; the Lutheran’s bloody sacrifice was a 
realized historical fact, to be appropriated separately by every 
believer’s personal trust. It was not, therefore, the Church 
which, in its corporate capacity, occupied the prior place, and 
held the deposit of divine grace for distribution to its mem¬ 
bers ; but it was the private person that constituted the sacred 
unit, and a plurality of believers supplied the factors of the 
Church. The grace which before could not reach the indi¬ 
vidual except by transit through accredited officials, now be¬ 
came directly accessible to each soul: and only after it had 
been received by a sufficient number to form a society, did 
the conditions of spiritual office and organization exist. This 
essential dependence of the whole upon the parts, instead of 
the parts upon the whole, is the most radical and powerful 
peculiarity of Protestantism. A system which raises the in¬ 
dividual to the primary place of religious importance, places 
him nearest to the supernatural energy of God, and makes him 
the living stone without which temple and altar cannot be 
built, naturally draws to it minds of marked vigor, and trains 
men in self-subsisting habits. By giving scope to the forces 
of private character, it sets in action the real springs of healthy 
progress, and happily with such intensity as to defy the checks 
it often seeks to impose in later moods of repentant alarm. 
This emancipation of the personal life from theocratic control, 
at first achieved in connection with the doctrine of justification, 
was sure to present itself in other forms. In its spiritual ap¬ 
plication Protestant egoism assumes the shape of reliance on 
inner faith ; in its political, of voluntaryism; in its intellect¬ 
ual, of free inquiry and private judgment. These several 


32 


DISTINCTIVE TYPES OF CHRISTIANITY. 


directions may be taken separately or together, but where, as 
in the Church of England, not one of them is unambiguously 
marked, the very principle of reformed Christianity is unse¬ 
cured, and Protestantism is present, not by charter, but by 
social accident. Puritanism everywhere—conforming or non- 
conforming, English or Continental — exhibits the first direc¬ 
tion; “Evangelical” Dissenters add the second; while Uni¬ 
tarians occupy the third, — not perhaps completely, and not 
altogether exclusively, but characteristically nevertheless. For 
it is impossible to unite the orthodox with the intellectual 
egoism. So long as the inner faith , which is the presumed 
condition of justification, includes a controverted doctrine, like 
the scheme of Atonement, the need of faith imposes a limit 
on the right of judgment: and you are only free to think till 
you show symptoms of thinking wrong. But when the sac¬ 
rificial Christianity has passed into the ethical, and no other 
condition of harmony with God is laid down than purity of 
affection and fidelity of will, then honest thought can peril no 
salvation, and the devotion of the intellect to truth and the 
heart to grace is a divided allegiance no more. 

It was for some time doubtful how far this Protestant egoism 
was likely to go. Luther was clear and positive that it was 
faith that justified; and fetching this doctrine out of a deep 
personal experience, he paid little respect to any one who 
contradicted it, and regulated by it his first choice of religious 
authorities. Led by this clew, he arrived at results strangely 
at variance with modern canons. He neither accepted as a 
standard the whole Bible, nor at first rejected the whole tra¬ 
dition of the Church; loosely attempting to reserve the Au- 
gustinian authorities, and to repudiate the Dominican. When 
he had renounced altogether the appeal to councils and patris¬ 
tic lore, it was in favor, not of the external Scriptures, uncon¬ 
ditionally taken as the rule of faith, but of the private spirit 
of the Christian reader, who was himself “made king and 
priest,” and could not only find the meaning, but pronounce 
upon the relative worth, of the canonical books. Accordingly, 
the Reformer made very free with portions of the Old Testa¬ 
ment, and with the more Judaic elements of the New, — the 



DISTINCTIVE TYPES OF CHRISTIANITY. 


33 


Epistle to the Hebrews, that of James, and the Apocalypse; 
and avowedly did this because he disliked the flavor of their 
doctrine, and felt its variance from the Pauline gospel. He 
thus tampered with his court before he brought forward his 
cause, and incapacitated the judges whose verdict he feared. 
In short, the religious life of his own soul was too intense and 
powerful to be prevailed over by any written word: he ap¬ 
propriated what was congenial, and threw away the rest. 
Uneasy relations were thus established between the subjective 
rule of faith found in the believer’s own mind, and the objec¬ 
tive standard of a documentary revelation: they were soon 
constituted, and have ever since remained rival authorities, 
commanding the allegiance of different orders of minds. The 
vast majority of Protestants, of less profound and tumultuous 
inner life than Luther, and less knowing how to see their way 
through it, subsided into exclusive recognition of the sacred 
writings; denying alike the regulative authority either of 
church councils or of the private soul. In every branch and 
derivative of the Genevan Reformation, throughout the whole 
range of both the Puritan and the Arminian Churches, a rig¬ 
orous Scripturalism prevails ; and the Bible is used as a code 
or legislative text-book, which yields, on mere interpretation, 
verdicts without appeal on every subject, whether doctrine or 
duty, of which it speaks. But Luther’s spiritual enthusiasm 
kindled a fire that he scarce could quench ; and while he him¬ 
self, flung into perpetual conflicts with opponents, was obliged 
more and more to refer to evidence external to his personal¬ 
ity, others had learned from him to look upon their own souls 
as the theatre of conscious strife between heaven and hell, and 
to recognize the voice of inspiration there. Carlstadt was the 
first to catch the flame of his teacher’s burning experience, 
and, touched by prophetic consciousness, to set the Spirit above 
the Word. Luther, so often recalled from the tendencies of 
his own turbulent teaching by seeing their mischiefs realized in 
other men, instantly turned on Carlstadt with his overwhelm¬ 
ing scorn: “ The spirit of our new prophet flies very high 
indeed: ’t is an audacious spirit, that would eat up the Holy 
Ghost, feathers and all. ‘ The Bible ? ’ — sneer these fellows, 


34 


DISTINCTIVE TYPES OF CHRISTIANITY. 


— ‘ Bibel, Bubel, Babel! ’ And not only do they reject the 
Bible thus contemptuously, but they say they would reject God 
too, if he were not to visit them as he did his prophets.” Carl- 
stadt had got hold of a doctrine that w r as too much for his ill- 
balanced mind, and Luther easily destroyed his repute. But 
a principle had been started which has never been dormant 
since; the very principle which afterwards constituted the 
Society of Friends, and finds its best exposition in the writings 
of their admirable apologist, Barclay; and which in our times 
reappears in more philosophic guise, and fights its old battles 
again as the doctrine of religious intuition. No period of 
awakened faith and sentiment has been without some increas¬ 
ing tincture of this persuasion; and under modified forms, 
with more or less admixture of the ordinary Puritan elements, 
it has played a great part among the Quietists in France, the 
Moravians in Germany, and the Methodists in England. In 
all these, far as they are from being committed to the notion 
of an “inner light,” spiritualism has predominated over Scrip- 
turalism, and permanent life in the Spirit has engaged the 
affections more than the transition into the adoption of faith. 

In this endeavor to lay out the ground-plan of modern 
Christian development, and trace upon it the chief lines both of 
psychological and of historical distinction, our design is to pre¬ 
pare the way for a series of sketches exhibiting the sects and 
types of religion in England. It is scarcely possible to notice 
the phenomena present here and to-day without referring to 
their antecedents in a prior age, their counterparts in other 
lands, and their permanent principles in human nature; and 
if our chart be tolerably correct, our future course will be 
rendered less indeterminate by the relations and points of 
comparison which have been established. The age, and even 
the hour, is teeming with new interests and pregnant auguries 
in relation to the highest element of human well-being. From 
a desire to approach these in a temper of just and reverential 
appreciation, we have abstained from recording the first im¬ 
pression of them, and sought rather, by a preliminary disci¬ 
pline, to detect some criteria by which prejudices may be 
checked, tendencies be estimated, and criticism acquire a clew. 


CHRISTIANITY WITHOUT PRIEST AND 
WITHOUT RITUAL. 


“ To whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, 
but chosen of God, and precious ; ye also, as lively stones, are built 
up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, 
acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.” — 1 Peter ii. 4, 5. 

The formation of human society, and the institution of 
priesthood, must be referred to the same causes and the same 
date. The earliest communities of the world appear to have 
had their origin and their cement, not in any gregarious in¬ 
stinct, nor in mere social affections, much less in any pruden¬ 
tial regard to the advantages of co-operation, but in a binding 
religious sentiment, submitting to the same guidance, and 
expressing itself in the same worship. As no tie can be 
more strong, so is none more primitive, than this agreement 
respecting what is holy and divine. In simple and patri¬ 
archal ages, indeed, when the feelings of veneration had not 
been set aside by analysis into a little corner of the char¬ 
acter, but spread themselves over the whole of life, and mixed 
it up with daily wonder, this bond comprised all the forces 
that can suppress the selfish and disorganizing passions, and 
compact a multitude of men together. It was not, as at 
present, to have simply the same opinions (things of quite 
modern growth, the brood of scepticism) ; but to have the 
same fathers, the same tradition, the same speech, the same 
land, the same foes, the same priest, the same God. Nothing 



36 


CHRISTIANITY WITHOUT PRIEST 


did man fear, or trust, or love, or desire, that did not belong, 
by some affinity, to his faith. Nor had he any book to keep 
the precious deposit for him; and if he had, he would never 
have thought of so frail a vehicle for so great a treasure. It 
was more natural to put it into structures hollowed in the 
fast mountain, or built of transplanted rocks which only a 
giant age could stir; and to tenant these with mighty hie¬ 
rarchies, who should guard their sanctity, and, by an un¬ 
dying memory, make their mysteries eternal. Hence, the 
first humanizer of men was their worship; the first leaders 
of nations, the sacerdotal caste; the first triumph of art, the 
colossal temple ; the first effort to preserve an idea produced 
a record of something sacred; and the first civilization was, 

, as the last will be, the birth of religion. 

The primitive aim of worship undoubtedly was, to act upon 
the sentiments of God; at first, by such natural and intelli¬ 
gible means as produce favorable impressions on the mind 
of a fellow-man, — by presents and persuasion, and whatever 
is expressive of grateful and reverential affections. Abel, the 
first shepherd, offered the produce of his flock; Cain, the 
first farmer, the fruits of his land; and while devotion was 
so simple in its modes, every one would be his own pontiff, 
and have his own altar. But soon, the parent would inevi¬ 
tably officiate for his family; the patriarch, for his tribe. 
With the natural forms dictated by present feelings, tra¬ 
ditional methods would mingle their contributions from the 
past; postures and times, gestures and localities, once indif¬ 
ferent, would become consecrated by venerable habit; and 
so long as their origin was unforgotten, they would add to 
the significance, while they lessened the simplicity, of wor¬ 
ship. Custom, however, being the growth of time, tends to 
a tyrannous and bewildering complexity: forms, originally 
natural, then symbolical, end in being arbitrary; suggestive 
of nothing, except to the initiated; yet, if connected with 
religion, so sanctified by the association, that it appears sacri¬ 
lege to desist from their employment; and when their meaning 
is lost, they assume their place, not among empty gesticula- 


AND WITHOUT RITUAL. 


37 


tions, but among the mystical signs by which earth com¬ 
munes with heaven. The vivid picture-writing of the early 
worship, filled with living attitudes, and sketched in the 
freshest colors of emotion, explained itself to every eye, and 
was open to every hand. To this succeeded a piety, which 
expressed itself in symbolical figures, veiling it utterly from 
strangers, but intelligible and impressive still to the soul of 
national tradition. This, however, passed again into a lan¬ 
guage of arbitrary characters, in which the herd of men saw 
sacredness without meaning; and the use of which must be 
consigned to a class separated for its study. Hence the origin 
of the priest and his profession; the conservator of a worship 
no longer natural, but legendary and mystical; skilful enactor 
of rites that spake with silent gesticulation to the heavens; 
interpreter of the wants of men into the divine language of 
the gods. Not till the powers above had ceased to hold 
familiar converse with the earth, and in their distance had be¬ 
come deaf and dumb to the common tongue of men, did the 
mediating priest arise ; — needed then to conduct the finger- 
speech of ceremony, whereby the desire of the creature took 
shape before the eye of the Creator. 

Observe, then, the true idea of Priest and Ritual. The 
Priest is the representative of men before God ; commissioned 
on behalf of human nature to intercede with the divine. He 
bears a message upwards , from earth to heaven; his people 
being below, his influence above. He takes the fears of the 
weak, and the cries of the perishing, and sets them with avail¬ 
ing supplication before Him that is able to help. He takes 
the sins and remorse of the guilty, and leaves them with ex¬ 
piating tribute at the feet of the averted Deity. He guards 
the avenues that lead from the mortal to the immortal, and 
without his interposition the creature is cut off from his 
Creator. Without his mediation no transaction between them 
can take place, and the spirit of a man must live as an out¬ 
law from the world invisible and holy. There are means of 
propitiation which he alone has authority to employ; powers 
of persuasion conceded to no other; a mystic access to the 
4 


38 


CHRISTIANITY WITHOUT PRIEST 


springs of divine benignity, by outward rites which his ma¬ 
nipulation must consecrate, or forms of speech which his lips 
must recommend. These ceremonies are the implements of 
his office and the sources of his power; the magic by which 
he is thought to gain admission to the will above, and really 
wins rule over human counsels below. As they are supposed 
to change the relation of God to man, not by visible or natural 
operation, not (for example) by suggestion of new thoughts, 
and excitement of new dispositions in the worshipper, but by 
secret and mysterious agency, they are simply spells of a dig¬ 
nified order. Were we then to speak with severe exactitude, 
we should say, a Ritual is a system of consecrated charms; 
and the Priest, the great magician who dispenses them. 

So long as any idea is retained of mystically efficacious 
rites, consigned solely and authoritatively to certain hands, 
this definition cannot be escaped. The ceremonies may have 
rational instruction and natural worship appended to them; 
and these additional elements may give them a title to true 
respect. The order of men appointed to administer them 
may have other offices and nobler duties to perform, render¬ 
ing them, if faithful, worthy of a just and reverential attach¬ 
ment. But in so far as, by an exclusive and unnatural 
efficacy, they bring about a changed relation between God 
and man, the Ritual is an incantation, and the Priest is an 
enchanter. 

To this sacerdotal devotion there necessarily attach cer¬ 
tain characteristic sentiments, both moral and religious, which 
give it a distinctive influence on human character, and adapt 
it to particular stages of civilization. It clearly severs the 
worshippers by one remove from God. He is a Being, ex¬ 
ternal to them, distant from them, personally unapproacliable 
by them; their thought must travel to reach the Almighty; 
they must look afar for the Most Holy ; they dwell themselves 
within the finite, and must ask a foreign introduction to the 
Infinite. He is not with them as a private guide, but in the 
remoter watch-towers of creation, as the public inspector of 
their life ; not present for perpetual communion, but to be 


AND WITHOUT RITUAL. 


39 


visited in absence by stated messages of form and prayer. 
And that God dwells in this cold and royal separation in¬ 
duces the feeling, that man is too mean to touch him; that a 
consecrated intervention is required, in order to part Deity 
from the defiling contact of humanity. Why else am I re¬ 
stricted from unlimited personal access to my Creator, and 
driven to another in my transactions with him ? And so, in 
this system, our nature appears in contrast, not in alliance, 
with the divine, and those views of it are favored which 
make the opposition strong; its puny dimensions, its swift 
decadence, its poor self-fiatteries, its degenerate virtues, its 
giant guilt, become familiar to the thought and lips ; and life, 
cut off from sympathy with the godlike, fills towards the 
level of melancholy, or the sink of epicurism, or the abject¬ 
ness of vicarious reliance on the priest. Worship, too, must 
have for its chief aim, to throw off the load of ill; to rid the 
mind of sin and shame, and the lot of hardship and sorrow; 
for principally to these disburdening offices do priests and 
rituals profess themselves adapted ; — and who, indeed, could 
pour forth the privacy of love, and peace, and trust, through 
the cumbrousness of ceremonies, and the pompousness of a 
sacred officer ? The piety of such a religion is thus a refuge 
for the weakness, not an outpouring of the strength, of the 
soul: it takes away the incubus of darkness, without shed¬ 
ding the light of heaven; lifts off the nightmare horrors of 
earth and hell, without opening the vision of angels and of 
God. Nay, for the spiritual bonds which connect men with 
the Father above, it substitutes material ties, a genealogy of 
sacred fires, a succession of hallowed buildings, or of priests 
having consecration by pedigree or by manual transmission ; 
so that qualities belonging to the soul alone are likened to 
forces mechanical or chemical; sanctity becomes a physical 
property; divine acceptance comes by bodily catenation; re¬ 
generation is degraded into a species of electric shock, which 
one only method of experiment, and the links of but one 
conductor, can convey. And, in fine, a priestly system ever 
abjures all aim at any higher perfection ; boasts of being ini- 


40 


CHRISTIANITY WITHOUT PRIEST 


mutable and unimprovable ; encourages no ambition, breathes 
no desire. It holds the appointed methods of influencing 
Heaven, on which none may presume to innovate ; and its 
functions are ever the same, to employ and preserve the 
ancient forms and legendary spells committed to its trust. 
Hence all its veneration is antiquarian, not sympathetic or 
prospective; it turns its back upon the living, and looks 
straight into departed ages, bowing the head and bending the 
knee; as if all objects of love and devotion were there , 
net here ; in history, not in life ; as if its God were dead, or 
otherwise imprisoned in the Past, and had bequeathed to its 
keeping such relics as might yield a perpetual benediction. 
Thus does the administration of religion, in proportion as it 
possesses a sacerdotal character, involve a distant Deity, a 
mean humanity, a servile worship, a physical sanctity, and a 
retrospective reverence. 

Let no one, however, imagine that there is no other idea 
or administration of religion than this ; that the priest is the 
only person among men to whom it is given to stand between 
heaven and earth. Even the Hebrew Scriptures introduce 
us to another class of quite different order; to whom, indeed, 
those Scriptures owe their own truth and power, and perpe¬ 
tuity of beauty : I mean the Prophets ; whom we shall very 
imperfectly understand, if we suppose them mere historians, 
for whom God had turned time round the other way, so that 
they spoke of things future as if past, and grew so dizzy in 
their use of tenses, as greatly to incommode learned gram¬ 
marians ; or if we treat their writings as scrap-books of Prov¬ 
idence, with miscellaneous contributions from various parts 
of duration, sketches taken indifferently from any point of 
view within eternity, and put together at random and without 
mark, on adjacent pages, for theological memories to identify; 
first, a picture of an Assyrian battle, next, a holy family ; now, 
of the captives sitting by Euphrates, then, of Paul preaching 
to the Gentiles ; here, a flight of devouring locusts, and there, 
the escape of the Christians from the destruction of Jeru¬ 
salem ; a portrait of Ilezekiah, and a view of Calvary; a 


AND WITHOUT KITUAL. 


41 


march through the desert, and John the Baptist by the Jor¬ 
dan ; the day of Pentecost, and the French Revolution; 
Nebuchadnezzar and Mahomet; Caligula and the Pope, — 
following each other with picturesque neglect of every rela¬ 
tion of time and place. No, the Prophet and his work always 
indeed belong to the future; but far otherwise than thus. 
Meanwhile, let us notice how, in Israel, as elsewhere, he 
takes his natural station above the priest. It was Moses the 
prophet who even made Aaron the priest. And who cares 
now for the sacerdotal books of the Old Testament, compared 
with the rest ? Who, having the strains of David, would pore 
over Leviticus, or would weary himself with Chronicles, when 
he might catch the inspiration of Isaiah ? It was no priest 
that wrote, u Thou desirest not sacrifice, else would I give it; 
thou delightest not in burnt-offering: the sacrifices of God 
are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, 
thou wilt not despise.” It was no pontifical spirit that ex¬ 
claimed, “ Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomi¬ 
nation to me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of 
assemblies, I cannot away with ; it is iniquity, even the solemn 
meeting : your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul 
hateth; they* are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear 
them.” “ Wash you, make you clean.” Whatever in these 
venerable Scriptures awes us by its grandeur and pierces us 
by its truth, comes of the prophets, not the priests ; and from 
that part of their writings, too, in which they are not con¬ 
cerned with historical prediction, but with some utterance 
deeper and greater. I do not deny them this gift of occa¬ 
sional intellectual foresight of events. And doubtless it was 
an honor to be permitted to speak thus to a portion of the 
future, and of local occurrences unrevealed to seers less privi¬ 
leged. But it is a glory far higher to speak that which be- ' 
longs to all time, and finds its interpretation in every place; to 
penetrate to the everlasting realities of things ; to disclose, 
not when this or that man will appear, but how and wherefore 
all men appear and quickly disappear; to make it felt, not in 
what nook of duration such an incident will happen, but from 
4. * 


42 


CHRISTIANITY WITHOUT PRIEST 


what all-embracing eternity the images of history emerge and 
are swallowed up. In this highest faculty the Hebrew seers 
belong to a class scattered over every nation and every 
period; which Providence keeps ever extant for human good, 
and especially to furnish an administration of religion quite 
anti-sacerdotal. This class we must proceed to characterize. 

The Prophet is the representative of God before men, com¬ 
missioned from the Divine nature to sanctify the human. 
He bears a message downwards , from heaven to earth; his 
inspirer being above, his influence below. He takes of the 
holiness of God, enters with it into the souls of men, and heals 
therewith the wounds, and purifies the taint, of sin. He is 
charged with the peace of God, and gives from it rest to the 
weariness and solace to the griefs of men. Instead of carry¬ 
ing the foulness of life to be cleansed in heaven, he brings 
the purity of heaven to make life divine. Instead of inter¬ 
posing himself and his mediation between humanity and Deity, 
he destroys the whole distance between them ; and only fulfils 
his mission, when he brings the finite mind and the infinite 
into immediate and thrilling contact, and leaves the creature 
consciously alone with the Creator. He is one to whom the 
primitive and everlasting relations between God and man 
have revealed themselves, stripped of every disguise, and 
bared of all that is conventional; who is possessed by their 
simplicity, mastered by their solemnity; who has found the 
secret of meeting the Holy Spirit within, rather than without; 
and knows, but cannot tell, how, in the strife of genuine duty, 
or in moments of true meditation, the Divine immensity and 
love have touched and filled his naked soul; and taught him 
by what fathomless Godhead he is folded round, and on what 
adamantine manhood he must take his stand. So far from 
separating others from the heavenly communion vouchsafed 
to himself, he necessarily believes that all may have the same 
godlike consciousness ; burns to impart it to them; and by the 
vivid light of his own faith speedily creates it in those who 
feel his influence, drawing out and freshening the faded colors 
of the Divine image in their souls, till they too become visibly 


AND WITHOUT RITUAL. 


43 


the seers and the sons of God. His instruments, like the 
objects of his mission, are human ; not mysteries, and mum¬ 
meries, and such arbitrary things, by which others may pre¬ 
tend to be talking with the skies; but the natural language 
which interprets itself at once to every genuine man, and 
goes direct to the living point of every heart. An earnest 
speech, a brave and holy life, truth of sympathy, severity of 
conscience, freshness and loftiness of faith, — these natural 
sanctities are his implements of power; and if heaven be 
pleased to add any other gifts, still are they weapons all, — 
not the mere tinsel of tradition and custom, — but forged in 
the inner workshop of our nature, where the fire glows be¬ 
neath the breath of God, framing tilings of ethereal temper. 
Thus armed, he lays undoubting siege to the world’s con¬ 
science ; tears down every outwork of pretence; forces its 
strong-holds of delusion; humbles the vanities at its centre, 
and proclaims it the citadel of God. The true prophet of 
every age is no believer in the temple, but in the temple’s 
Deity; trusts, not rites and institutions, but the heart and soul 
that fill or ought to fill them ; if they speak the truth, no one 
so reveres them; if a lie, they meet with no contempt like 
his. He sees no indestructible sanctuary but the mind itself, 
wherein the Divine Spirit ever loves to dwell; and whence it 
will be sure to go forth and build such outward temple as may 
suit the season of Providence. He is conscious that there is 
no devotion like that which comes spontaneously from the 
secret places of our humanity, no orisons so true as those 
which rise from the common platform of our life. He de¬ 
sires only to throw himself in faith on the natural piety of 
the heart. Give him but that, and he will find for man 
an everlasting worship, and raise for God a cathedral worthy 
of his infinitude. 

It is evident that one thoroughly possessed with this spirit 
could never be, and could never make, a priest; nor frame a 
ritual for priests already made. He is destitute of the ideas 
out of which alone these tilings can be created. His mission 
is in the opposite direction: he interprets and reveals God to 


44 


CHRISTIANITY WITHOUT PRIEST 


men, instead of interceding for men with God. In this office 
sacerdotal rites have no function and no place. I do not say 
that he must necessarily disapprove and abjure them, or deny 
that he may directly sanction them. If he does, however, it 
is not in his capacity of prophet, but in conformity with feel¬ 
ings which his proper office has left untouched. His tendency 
will be against ceremonialism; and on his age and position 
will depend the extent to which this tendency takes effect. 
Usually he will construct nothing ritual, will destroy much, 
and leave behind great and growing ideas, destructive of much 
more. But ere we quit our general conception of a prophet, 
let us notice some characteristic sentiments, moral and re¬ 
ligious, which naturally connect themselves with his faith; 
comparing them with those which belong to the sacerdotal 
influence. 

In this faith, God is separated by nothing from his wor¬ 
shippers. He is not simply in contact with them, but truly 
in the interior of their nature; so that they may not only 
meet him in the outward providences of life, but bear his 
spirit with them, when they go to toil and conflict, and find it 
still, when they sit alone to think and pray. He is not the 
far observer, but the very present help, of the faithful will. 
Ho structure made with hands, nay, not even his own ar¬ 
chitecture of the heaven of heavens, contains and confines 
his presence : were there any dark recess whence these were 
hid, the blessed access would be without hinderance still; 
and the soul would discern him near as its own identity. Ho 
mean and ignoble conception can be entertained of a mind 
which is thus the residence of Deity; — the shrine of the 
Infinite must have somewhat that is infinite itself. Thus, in 
this system, does our nature appear in alliance with the Di¬ 
vine, not in contrast with it; inspired with a portion of its 
holiness, and free to help forward the best issues of its provi¬ 
dence. Human life, ’blessed by this spirit, becomes a minia¬ 
ture of the work of the great Ruler: its responsibilities, its 
difficulties, its temptations, become dignified as the glorious 
theatre whereon we strive, by and with the good Spirit of 


AND WITHOUT RITUAL. 


45 


God, for the mastery over evil. Worship, issuing from a 
nature and existence thus consecrated, is not the casting off 
of guilt and terror, but the glad unburdening of love, and 
trust, and aspiration, the simple speaking forth, as duty is 
the acting forth, of the divine within us; not the prostration 
of the slave, but the embrace of the child; not the plaint of 
the abject, but the anthem of the free. Is it not private, 
individual ? And may it not by silence say what it will, and 
intimate the precise thing, and that only, which is at heart ? — 
whence there grows insensibly that firm root of excellence, 
truth with one’s own self. The priestly fancy of an hereditary 
or lineal sacredness can have no place here. The soul and 
God stand directly related, mind with mind, spirit with spirit: 
from our moral fidelity to this relation, from the jealousy with 
which we guard it from insult or neglect, does the only sanc¬ 
tity arise; and herein there is none to help us, or give a 
vicarious consecration. And, finally, the spirit of God’s true 
prophet is earnestly prospective; more filled with the con¬ 
ception of what the Creator will make his world, than of 
what he has already made it: detecting great capacities, it 
glows with great hopes ; knowing that God lives, and will 
live, it turns from the past, venerable as that may be, and 
reverences rather the promise of the present, and the glories 
of the future. It esteems nothing unimprovable, is replete 
with vast desires; and amid the shadows and across the wilds 
of existence chases, not vainly, a bright image of perfection. 
The golden age, which priests with their tradition put into 
the past, the prophet, with his faith and truth, transfers into 
the future; and while the former pines and muses, the latter 
toils and prays. Thus does the administration of religion, 
in proportion as it partakes of the prophetic or anti-sacer¬ 
dotal character, involve the ideas of an interior Deity, a noble 
humanity, a loving worship, an individual holiness, and a 
prospective veneration. 

We have found, then, two opposite views of religion : that 
of the Priest with his Ritual, and that of the Prophet with 
his Faith. I propose to show that the Church of England, 


46 


CHRISTIANITY WITHOUT PRIEST 


in its doctrine of sacraments, coincides with the former of 
these, and sanctions all its objectionable sentiments; and 
that Christianity, in every relation, even with respect to its 
reputed rites, coincides with the latter. 

The general conformity of the Church of England with the 
ritual conception of religion will not be denied by her own 
members. Their denial will be limited to one point: they 
will protest that her formulas of doctrine do not ascribe a 
charmed efficacy, or any operation upon God, to the two 
sacraments. To avoid verbal disputes, let us consider what 
we are to understand by a spell or charm. The name, I ap¬ 
prehend, denotes any material object or outward act, the pos¬ 
session or use of which is thought to confer safety or blessing, 
not by natural operation, but by occult virtues inherent in 
it, or mystical effects appended to it. A mere commemo¬ 
rative sign, therefore, is not a charm, nor need there be any 
superstition in its employment: it simply stands for certain 
ideas and memories in our minds ; re-excites and freshens 
them, not otherwise than speech audibly records them, except 
that it summons them before us by sight and touch, instead of 
sound. The effect, whatever it may be, is purely natural, by 
sequence of thought on thought^ till the complexion of the 
mind is changed, and haply suffused with a noble glow. But 
in truth it is not fit to speak of commemorations, as things 
having efficacy at all; as desirable observances, under whose 
action we should put ourselves, in order to get up certain 
good dispositions in the heart. As soon as we see them ac¬ 
quiesced in, with this dutiful submission to a kind of spiritual 
operation, we may be sure they are already empty and dead. 
An expedient commemoration, deliberately maintained bn util¬ 
itarian principles, for the sake of warming cold affections by 
artificial heat, is one of the foolish conceptions of this mechan¬ 
ical and sceptical age. It is quite true, that such influence is 
found to belong to rites of remembrance ; but only so long as 
it is not privately looked into, or greedily contemplated by 
the staring eye of prudence, but simply and unconsciously 
received. No; commemorations must be the spontaneous 


AND WITHOUT RITUAL. 


47 


fruit and outburst of a love already kindled in the soul, not 
the factitious contrivance for forcing it into existence. They 
are not the lighted match applied to the fuel on an altar cold; 
but the shapes in which the living flame aspires, or the fretted 
lights thrown by that central love on the dark temple-walls of 
this material life. 

It is not pretended that the sacraments are mere com¬ 
memorative rites And nothing, I submit, remains, but that 
they should be pronounced charms. It is of little purpose 
to urge, in denial of this, that the Church insists upon the 
necessity of faith on the part of the recipient, without which 
no benefit, but rather peril, will accrue. This only limits the 
use of the charm to a certain class, and establishes a pre¬ 
requisite to its proper efficacy. It simply conjoins the out¬ 
ward form with a certain state of mind, and gives to each of 
these a participation in the effect. If the faith be insufficient 
without the ceremony, then some efficacy is due to the rite; 
and this, being neither the natural operation of the material 
elements, nor a simple suggestion of ideas and feelings to the 
mind, but mystical and preternatural, is no other than a 
charmed efficacy. 

Nor will the statement, that the effect is not upon God, but 
upon man, bear examination. It is very true, that the ulti¬ 
mate benefit of these rites is a result reputed to fall upon the 
worshipper ; -— regeneration, in the case of baptism ; partici¬ 
pation in the atonement, in the case of the Lord’s Supper. 
But by what steps do these blessings descend ? Not by those 
of-visible or perceived causation ; but through an express and 
extraordinary volition of God, induced by the ceremonial 
form, or taking occasion from it. The sacerdotal economy, 
therefore, is so arranged, that, whenever the priest dispenses 
the water at the font, the Holy Spirit follows, as in instan¬ 
taneous compliance with a suggestion; and whenever he 
spreads his hands over the elements at the communion, God 
immediately establishes a preternatural relation, not subsisting 
the moment before, between the substances on the table and 
the souls of the faithful communicants: so that every partaker 


48 


CHRISTIANITY WITHOUT PRIEST 


receives, either directly or through supernatural increase of 
faith, some new share in the merits of the cross. Whatever 
subtleties of language then may be employed, it is evidently 
conceived that the first consequence of these forms takes place 
in heaven; and that on this depends whatever benediction 
they may bring: nor can a plain understanding frame any 
other idea of them than this ; first, they act upwards, and 
suggest something to the mind of God, who then sends down 
an influence on the mind of the believer. From this concep¬ 
tion no figures of speech, no ingenious analogies, can deliver 
us. Do you call the sacraments “ pledges of grace ” ? A 
pledge means a promise; and how a voluntary act of ours, or 
the priest’s, can be a promise made to us by the Divine Being, 
it is not easy to understand. Do you call them “seals of 
God’s covenant,” — the instrument by which he engages to 
make over its blessings to the Christian, like the signature and 
completion of a deed conveying an estate ? It still perplexes 
us to think of a service of our own as an assurance received 
by us from Heaven. And one would imagine that the Divine 
promise, once given, were enough, without this incessant bind¬ 
ing by periodical legalities. If it be said, “ The renewal of 
the obligation is needful for us, and not for him ” ; then call 
the rites at once and simply, our service of self-dedication, the 
solemn memorial of our vows. And in spite of all metaphors, 
the question recurs, Does the covenant stand without these 
seals, or are they essential to give possession of the privileges 
conveyed ? Are they, by means preternatural, procurers of 
salvation ? Have they a mystical action towards this end ? 
If so, we return to the same point; they have a charmed 
efficacy on the human soul. 

In order to establish this, nothing more is requisite than a 
brief reference to the language of the Articles and Liturgical 
services of the Church respecting Baptism and the Com¬ 
munion. 

Baptism is regarded, throughout the Book of Common 
Prayer, as the instrument of regeneration : not simply as its 
sign, of which the actual descent of the Holy Spirit is inde- 


AND WITHOUT RITUAL. 


49 


pendent; but as itself and essentially tlie means or indispen¬ 
sable occasion of the washing away of sin. That this is 
regarded as a mystical and magical, not a natural and spirit¬ 
ual^ effect, is evident from the alleged fact of its occurrence 
in infants, to whom the rite can suggest nothing, and on 
whom, in the course of nature, it can leave no impression. 
Yet it is declared of the infant, after the use of the water, 
“ Seeing now, dearly beloved brethren, that this child is re¬ 
generate] ” &c.: at the commencement of the service its aim 
is said to be that God may “ grant to this child that thing 
which by nature he cannot have,” — “ would wash him and 
sanctify him with the Holy Ghost,” that he may be “ deliv¬ 
ered from God’s "wrath.” Nothing, indeed, is so striking in 
this office of the national Church, as its audacious trifling 
with solemn names, denoting qualities of the soul and will; 
the ascription of spiritual and moral attributes, not only to 
the child in whom they can yet have no development, but 
even to material substances; the frivolity with which engage¬ 
ments with God are made by deputy, and without the con¬ 
sent or even existence of the engaging will. Water is said 
to possess sanctity , for “ the mystical washing away of sin.” 
Infants, destitute of any idea of duty or obligation to be re¬ 
sisted or obeyed, are said to obtain “ remission of their sins ” ; 
— to “ renounce the Devil and all his works, the vain pomp 
and glory of the world ” ; “ steadfastly to believe ” in the 
Apostles’ Creed, and to be desirous of “baptism into this 
faith.” Belief, desire, resolve, are acts of some one’s mind: 
the language of this service attributes them to the personality 
of the infant (/renounce,/believe, /desire) ; yet there they 
cannot possibly exist. If they are to be understood as af¬ 
firmed by the godfathers and godmothers of themselves, the 
case is not improved: for how can one person’s state of faith 
and conscience be made the condition of the regeneration of 
another ? What intelligible meaning can be attached to these 
phrases of sanctity applied to an age not responsible ? In 
what sense, and by what indication, are these children holier 
than others ? And with what reason, if all this be Cliris- 
5 


50 


CHRISTIANITY WITHOUT PRIEST 


tianity, can we blame the Pope for sprinkling holy water on 
the horses ? The service appears little better than a profane 
sacerdotal jugglery, by which material things are impregnated 
with divine virtues, moral and spiritual qualities of the mind 
are sported with, the holy spirit of God is turned into a 
physical mystery, and the solemnity of personal responsibility 
is insulted. 

That a superstitious value is attributed to the details of 
the baptismal form, in the Church of England, appears from 
certain parts of the service for the private ministration of the 
rite. If a child has been baptized by any other lawful min¬ 
ister than the minister of the parish, strict inquiries are to 
be instituted by the latter respecting the correctness with 
which the ceremony has been performed; and should the 
prescribed rules have been neglected, the baptism is invalid, 
and must be repeated. Yet great solicitude is manifested, 
lest danger should be incurred by an unnecessary repetition 
of the sacrament: to guard against which, the minister is to 
give the following conditional invitation to the Holy Spirit; 
saying, in his address to the child, “ If thou art not already 
baptized, I baptize thee,” &c. It is worthy of remark, that 
the Church mentions as one of the essentials of the service, 
the omission of which necessitates its repetition, the use of 
the formula, “ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, 
and of the Holy Ghost.” By this rule, every one of- the apos¬ 
tolic baptisms recorded in Scripture must be pronounced in¬ 
valid ; and the Church of England, were it possible, would 
perform them again: for in no instance does it appear that 
the Apostles employed either this or even any equivalent 
form of words. 

That this sacrament is regarded as an indispensable channel 
of grace, and positively necessary to salvation, is clear from 
the provision of a short and private form, to be used in cases 
of extreme danger. The prayers, and faith, and obedience, 
and patient love, of parents and friends, — the dedication and 
heart-felt surrender of their child to God, the profound appli¬ 
cation of their anxieties and grief to their conscience and 


AND WITHOUT RITUAL. 


51 


inward life, — all this, we are told, will be of no avail, with¬ 
out the water and the priest. Archbishop Laud says: “ That 
baptism is necessary to the salvation of infants (in the or¬ 
dinary way of the Church, without binding God to the use 
and means of that sacrament, to which he hath bound us), is 
expressed in St. John iii., ‘ Except a man be born of water/ 
&c. So, no baptism, no entrance; nor can infants creep in, 
any other ordinary way.” * Bishop Bramhall says : “ Wilful 
neglect of baptism we acknowledge to be a damnable sin; 
and, without repentance and God’s extraordinary mercy, to 
exclude a man from all hope of salvation. But yet, if such 
a person, before his death, shall repent and deplore his neg¬ 
lect of the means of grace, from his heart, and desire with 
all his soul to be baptized, but is debarred from it invincibly, 
we do not, we dare not, pass sentence of condemnation upon 
him; not yet the Roman Catholics themselves. The ques¬ 
tion then is, whether the want of baptism, upon invincible 
necessity, do evermore infallibly exclude from heaven.” f 
Singular struggle here, between the merciless ritual of the 
priest, and the relenting spirit of the man ! 

The office of Communion contains even stronger marks of 
the same sacerdotal superstitions; and, notwithstanding the 
Protestant horror entertained of the mass, approaches it so 
nearly, that no ingenuity can exhibit them in contrast. Near 
doctrines, however, like near neighbors, are known to quarrel 
most. 

The idea of a physical sanctity, residing in solid and liquid 
substances, is encouraged by this service. The priest conse¬ 
crates the elements, by laying his hand upon all the bread, 
and upon every flagon containing the wine about to be dis¬ 
pensed. If an additional quantity is required, this too must 
be consecrated before its distribution. And the sacredness 
thus imparted is represented as surviving the celebration of 

* Conference with Fisher, § 15 ; quoted in Tracts for the Times, No. 76. 
Catena Patrum, No. II. p. 18. 

f Of Persons dying without Baptism, p. 979 ; quoted in loc. cit. pp. 
19,20. 



52 


CHRISTIANITY WITHOUT PRIEST 


the Supper, and residing in the substances as a permanent 
quality: for in the disposal of the bread and wine that may 
remain at the close of the sacramental feast, a distinction is 
made between the consecrated and the unconsecrated portion 
of the elements ; the former is not permitted to quit the 
altar, but is to be reverently consumed by the priest and the 
communicants; the latter is given to the curate. What the 
particular change may be, which the prayer and manipulation 
of the minister are thought to induce, it is by no means easy 
to determine; nor would the discovery, perhaps, reward our 
pains. It is certainly conceived, that they cease to be any 
longer mere bread and wine, and that with them thence¬ 
forth co-exist, really and substantially, the body and blood of 
Christ. Respecting this Real Presence with the elements, 
there is no dispute between the Romish and the English 
Church; both unequivocally maintain it: and the only ques¬ 
tion is, respecting the Real Absence of the original and cu¬ 
linary bread and wine; the Roman Catholic believing that 
these substantially vanish, and are replaced by the body and 
blood of Christ; the English Protestant conceiving that they 
remain, but are united with the latter. The Lutheran, no 
less than the British Reformed Church, has clung tenaciously 
to the doctrine of the real presence in the Eucharist. Luther 
himself declares : “ I would rather retain, with the Romanists, 
only the body and blood, than adopt, with the Swiss, the 
bread and wine, without the real body and blood of Christ.” 
The catechism of our Church affirms that “ the body and 
blood of Christ are verily and indeed taken and received by 
the faithful in the Lord’s Supper.” And this was not in¬ 
tended to be figuratively understood, of the spiritual use and 
appropriation to which the faith and piety of the receiver 
would mentally convert the elements : for although here the 
body of Christ is only said to be “ taken ” (making it the act 
of the communicant ), yet one of the Articles speaks of it as 
“ given ” (making it the act of the officiating priest ), and im¬ 
plying the real presence before participation. However 
anxious, indeed, the clergy of the “ Evangelical” school may 


AND WITHOUT RITUAL. 


53 


be to disguise the fact, it cannot be doubted that their 
Church has always maintained a supernatural change in the 
elements themselves, as well as in the mind of the receiver. 
Cosin, Bishop of Durham, says, “ We own the union between 
the body and blood of Christ, and the elements, whose use 
and office we hold to be changed from what it was before ” ; 
“ we confess the necessity of a supernatural and heavenly 
change, and that the signs cannot become sacraments but by 
the infinite power of God.” * 

In consistency with this preparatory change, a charmed 
efficacy is attributed to the subsequent participation in the 
elements. Even the body of the communicant is said to be 
under their influence: “ Grant us to eat the flesh of thy 
dear Son, and drink his blood, that our sinful bodies may be 
made clean through his body, and our souls washed through 
his most precious blood ”; and the unworthy recipients are 
said “ to provoke God to plague them with divers diseases 
and sundry kinds of death.” Lest the worshipper, by pre¬ 
senting himself in an unqualified state, should “ do nothing 
else than increase his damnation,” the unquiet conscience is 
directed to resort to the priest, and receive the benefit of ab¬ 
solution before communicating. Can we deny to the Oxford 
divines the merit (whatever it may be) of consistency with 
the theology of their Church, when they applaud and recom¬ 
mend, as they do, the administration of the Eucharist to in¬ 
fants, and to persons dying and insensible? Indeed, it is 
difficult to discover why infant Communion should be thought 
more irrational than infant Baptism. If, as I have endeav¬ 
ored to show, the primary action of these ceremonies is con¬ 
ceived to be on God, not on the mind of their object, why 
should not the Divine blessing be induced upon the young 
and the unconscious, as well as on the mature and capable 
soul? And were any further evidence required than I have 
hitherto adduced, to show on whom the Communion is con- 


* History of Popish Transubstantiation, Chap. IV. ; printed in the Tracts 
for the Times, No. XXVII. pp. 14, 15. 



54 


CHRISTIANITY WITHOUT PRIEST 


ceived to operate in the first instance, it would surely be 
afforded by this clause in the Service: by not partaking, 
“ Consider how great an injury ye do unto God.” 

The only thing wanted to complete this sacerdotal system, 
is to obtain for a certain class of men the corporate posses¬ 
sion, and exclusive administration, of these essential and holy 
mysteries. This our Church accomplishes by its doctrine of 
Apostolical Succession ; claiming for its ministers a lineal 
official descent from the Apostles, which invests them, and 
them alone within this realm, with divine authority to pro¬ 
nounce absolution or excommunication, and to administer the 
Sacraments. They are thus the sole guardians of the chan¬ 
nels of the Divine Spirit and its grace, and interpose them¬ 
selves between a nation and its God. “ Receive the Holy 
Ghost,” says the Service for Ordination of Priests, “ for the 
office and work of a priest in the Church of God, now com¬ 
mitted unto thee by the imposition of hands. Whose sins 
thou dost forgive, they are forgiven ; aud whose sins thou dost 
retain, they are retained.” “ They only,” says the present 
Bishop of Exeter, “ can claim to rule over the Lord’s house¬ 
hold, whom he has himself placed over it; they only are able 
to minister the means of grace, — above all, to present the 
great commemorative sacrifice , — whom Christ has appointed, 
and whom he has in all generations appointed in unbroken 
succession from those, and through those, whom he first or¬ 
dained. ‘ Ambassadors from Christ ’ must, by the very force 
of the term, receive credentials from Christ: 4 stewards of the 
mysteries of God * must be intrusted with those mysteries by 
him. Remind your people, that in the Church only is the 
promise of forgiveness of sins; and though, to all who truly 
repent, and sincerely believe, Christ mercifully grants forgive¬ 
ness, yet he has, in an especial manner, empowered his minis¬ 
ters to declare and pronounce to his people the absolution and 
remission of their sins: ‘ Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are 
remitted unto them ; and whosesoever sins ye retain, they are 
retained.’ This was the awful authority given to his first 
ministers, and in them, and through them, to all their sue- 


AND WITHOUT RITUAL. 


55 


cessors. This is the awful authority we have received, and 
that we must never be ashamed nor afraid to tell the people 
that we have received. 

“ Having shown to the people your commission, show to 
them how our own Church has framed its services in accord¬ 
ance with that commission. Show tiffs to them not only in 
the Ordinal, but also in the Collects, in the Communion Ser¬ 
vice, in the Office of the Visitation of the Sick; show it, es¬ 
pecially, in that which continually presents itself to their no¬ 
tice, but is commonly little regarded by them; show it in the 
very commencement of Morning and Evening Prayer, and 
make them understand the full blessedness of that service, in 
which the Church thus calls on them to join. Let them see 
that there the minister authoritatively pronounces God’s 
pardon and absolution to all them that truly repent, and un- 
feignedly believe Christ’s holy Gospel; that he does this, even 
as the Apostles did, with the authority and by the appoint¬ 
ment of our Lord himself, who, in commissioning his Apos¬ 
tles, gave this to be the never-failing assurance of his co¬ 
operation in their ministry: ‘ Lo, I am with you always, even 
unto the end of the world ’; a promise which, of its very 
nature, was not to be fulfilled to the persons of those whom 
he addressed, but to their office, to their successors therefore 
in that office, ‘even unto the end of the world.’ Lastly, 
remind and warn them of the awful sanction with which our 
Lord accompanied his mission, even of the second order of the 
ministers whom he appointed: ‘ He that heareth you, heareth 
me; and he that despiseth you, despiseth me; and he that 
despiseth me, despiseth him that sent me.’ ” That this high 
dignity may be clearly understood to belong in this country 
only to the Church of England, the Bishop proposes the 
question, “ What, then, becomes of those who are not, or 
continue not, members of that (visible) Church?” and replies 
to it by saying, that though he “judges not them that are 
without,” yet “ he who wilfully and in despite of due warning, 
or through recklessness and worldly-mindedness, sets at naught 
its ordinances, and despises its ministers, has no right to 


56 


CHRISTIANITY WITHOUT PRIEST 


promise to himself any share in the grace which they are 
appointed to convey.” * “ Why,” says one of the Oxford 

divines, who here undeniably speaks the genuine doctrine of 
his Church,— “ Why should we talk so much of an Establish¬ 
ment , and so little of an Apostolic Succession ? Why 
should we not seriously Endeavor to impress our people with 
this plain truth, that, by separating themselves from our com¬ 
munion, they separate themselves not only from a decent, 
orderly, useful society, but from the only Church in 
this realm which has a right to be quite sure 

THAT SHE HAS THE LORD’S BODY TO GIVE TO HIS PEO¬ 
PLE ? ” f 

Of course this divine authority has been received through 
the Church of Rome, so abominable in the eyes of all Evan¬ 
gelical clergymen ; and through many an unworthy link in 
the broken chain. The Holy Spirit, it is acknowledged, has 
passed through many, on whom, apparently, it was not pleased 
to rest; and the right to forgive sins been conferred by those 
who seemed themselves to need forgiveness. A writer in 
the Oxford Tracts observes: “ Nor even though we may admit 
that many of those who formed the connecting links of this 
holy chain were themselves unworthy of the high charge 
reposed in them, can this furnish us with any solid ground 
for doubting or denying their power to exercise that legiti¬ 
mate authority with which they were duly invested, of trans¬ 
mitting the sacred gift to worthier followers.” | 

In its doctrine of Sacraments, then, and in that of eccle¬ 
siastical authority and succession, the Church of England is 
thoroughly imbued with the sacerdotal character. It doubt¬ 
less contains far better elements and nobler conceptions than 
those which it has been my duty to exhibit now; and sol¬ 
emnly insists on faith of heart, and truth of conscience, and 
Christian devotedness of life, as well as on the observance of 

* Bishop of Exeter’s Charge, delivered at his Triennial Visitation in 
August, September, and October, 1836, pp. 44-47. 

f Tracts for the Times, No. IV. p. 5. 

J Ibid., No. V. pp. 9,10. 



AND WITHOUT RITUAL. 


57 


its ritual; with the external it unites the internal condition of 
sanctification. But insisting on the theory of a mystic efficacy 
in the Christian rites, it necessarily fails to reconcile these 
with each other: and hence the opposite parties within its 
pale ; the one magnifying faith and personal spirituality, the 
other exalting the sacraments and ecclesiastical communion. 
They represent respectively the two constituent and clashing 
powers, which met at the formation of the English Church, 
and of which it effected the mere compromise, not the recon¬ 
ciliation ; I mean, the priestliness of Rome, and the prophetic 
spirit of the Reformers. Never, since apostolic days, did 
Heaven bless us with truer prophet than Martin Luther. It 
was his mission (no modern man had ever greater) to substi¬ 
tute the idea of personal faith for that of sacerdotal reliance . 
And gloriously, with bravery and truth of soul amid a thou¬ 
sand hinderances, did he achieve it. But though, ever since, 
the pridlts have been down, and faith has been up, yet did 
the hierarchy unavoidably remain, and insisted that something 
should be made of it, and at least some colorable terms pro¬ 
posed. Hence, every reformed church exhibits a coalition 
between the new and the old ideas: and combined views of 
religion, which must ultimately prove incompatible with each 
other; the formal with the spiritual; the idea of worship as 
a means of propitiating God, with the conception of it as an 
expression of love in man; the notion of Church authority 
with that of individual freedom; the admission of a license 
to think, with a prohibition of thinking wrong. In our na¬ 
tional Church the old spirit was ascendant over the new, 
though long forced into quiescence by the temper of modern 
times. Now it is attempting to reassert its power, not with¬ 
out strenuous resistance. Indeed, the present age seems 
destined to end the compromise between the two principles, 
from the union of which Protestantism assumed its estab¬ 
lished forms. The truce seems everywhere breaking up: a 
general disintegration of churches is visible; tradition is ran¬ 
sacking the past for claims and dignities, and canvassing 
present timidity for fresh authority, to withstand the wild 


58 


CHRISTIANITY WITHOUT PRIEST 


forces born at the Reformation, and hurrying us fast into an 
unknown future. 

Let us now turn to the primitive Christianity; which, I 
submit, is throughout wholly anti-sacerdotal. 

Surely it must be admitted that the general spirit of our 
Lord’s personal life and ministry was that of the Prophet, 
not of the Priest; tending directly to the disparagement of 
whatever priesthood existed in his country, without visibly 
preparing the substitution of anything at all analogous to it. 
The sacerdotal order felt it so; and, with the infallible instinct 
of self-preservation, they watched, they hated, they seized, 
they murdered him. The priest in every age has a natural 
antipathy to the prophet, dreads him as kings dread revolution, 
and is the first to detect his existence. The solemn moment 
and the gracious words of Christ’s first preaching in Nazareth, 
struck with fate the temple in Jerusalem. To the old men 
of the village, to the neighbors who knew his childhood, and 
companions who had shared its rambles and its sports, he 
said, with the quiet flush of inspiration : “ The Spirit of the 
Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the 
Gospel to the poor: he hath sent me to heal the broken¬ 
hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recover¬ 
ing of sight to the blind; to set at liberty them that are 
bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.” The 
Spirit of the Lord in Galilee ! speaking with the peasantry, 
dwelling in villages, and wandering loose and where it listeth 
among the hills ! This would never do, thought the white- 
robed Levites of the Holy City; it would be as a train of 
wildfire in the temple. And were they not right? When 
it was revealed that sanctity is no thing of place and time, 
that a way is open from earth to heaven, from every field or 
mountain trod by human feet, and through every roof that 
shelters a human head; that, amid the crowd and crush of 
life, each soul is in personal solitude with God, and by speech 
or silence (be they but true and loving) may tell its cares and 
find its peace ; that a divine allegiance might cost nothing , 
but the strife of a dutiful will and the patience of a filial 


AND WITHOUT RITUAL. 


59 


heart, — how could any priesthood hope to stand ? See how 
Jesus himself, when the temple was close at hand, and the 
sunshine dressed it in its splendor, yet withdrew his prayers 
to the midnight of Mount Olivet. He entered those courts 
to teach, rather than to worship; and when there, he is felt 
to take no consecration, but to give it; to bring with him the 
living spirit of God, and spread it throughout all the place. 
When evening closes his teachings, and he returns late over 
the Mount to Bethany, did he not feel that there was more of 
God in the night-breeze on his brow, and the heaven above 
him, and the sad love within him, than in the place called 
“ Holy ” which he had left ? And when he had knocked at 
the gate of Lazarus the risen and become his guest, — when, 
after the labors of the day, he unburdened his spirit to the 
affections of that family, and spake of things divine to the 
sisters listening at his feet, — did they not feel, as they retired 
at length, that the whole house was full of God, and that there 
is no sanctuary like the shrine, not made with hands, within 
us all ? In childhood, he had once preferred the temple and 
its teachings to his parents’ home: now, to his deeper expe¬ 
rience, the temple has lost its truth; while the cottage and 
the walks of Nazareth, the daily voices and constant duties 
of this life, seem covered with the purest consecration. True, 
he vindicated the sanctity of the temple, when he heard within 
its enclosure the hum of traffic and the chink of gain, and 
would not have the house of prayer turned into a place of 
merchandise: because in this there was imposture and a lie, 
and Mammon and the Lord must ever dwell apart. In 
nothing must there be mockery and falsehood; and while 
the temple stands, it must be a temple true. 

Our Lord’s whole ministry, then, (to which we may add 
that of his Apostles,) was conceived in a spirit quite opposite 
to that of priesthood. A missionary life, without fixed lo¬ 
cality, without form, without rites ; with teaching free, oc¬ 
casional, and various, with sympathies ever with the people, 
and a strain of speech never marked by invective, except 
against the ruling sacerdotal influence ; — all these characters 


GO 


CHRISTIANITY WITHOUT TRIEST 


proclaim him, purely and emphatically, the Prophet of the 
Lord. It deserves notice that, unless as the name of his 
enemies, the word “ Priest ” (lepevs) never occurs in either 
the historical or epistolary writings of the New Testament, 
except in the Epistle to the Hebrews. And there its applica¬ 
tion is not a little remarkable. It is applied to Christ alone ; 
it is declared to belong to him only after his ascension ; it is 
said that, while on earth, he neither was, nor could be, a 
priest; and if it is admitted that he holds the office in heaven, 
this is only to satisfy the demand of the Hebrew Christians 
for some sacerdotal ideas in their religion, and to reconcile 
them to having no priest on earth. The writer acknowledges 
one great pontiff in the world above, that the whole race may 
be superseded in the world below; and banishes priesthood 
into' invisibility, that men may never see its shadow more. 
All the terms of office which are given to the first preachers 
of the Gospel and superintendents of churches, — as Deacon, 
Elder or Presbyter, Overseer or Bishop, — are lay terms , be¬ 
longing previously, not to ecclesiastical, but to civil life; an 
indication, surely, that no analogy was thought to exist be¬ 
tween the Apostolic and the Sacerdotal relations.* I shall, 
no doubt, be reminded of the words, in which our Lord is 
supposed to liave^ given their commission to his first repre¬ 
sentatives : “ Whatsoever ye bind on earth shall be bound in 
heaven; and whatsoever ye loose on earth shall be loosed 
in heaven ”; and shall be asked whether this does not con¬ 
vey to them and their successors an official authority to 


* Archbishop Whately, speaking of the word lepevs and its meaning, 
says : “ This is an office assigned to none under the Gospel scheme, except 
the one great High-Priest, of whom the Jewish priests were types.” (Ele¬ 
ments of Logic. Appendix: Note on the word “ Priest.”) Of the 11 Gos¬ 
pel scheme ” this is quite true ; of the Church-of-England scheme it is not. 
There lies before me Duport’s Greek version of the Prayer-Book and Offices 
of the Anglican Church : and turning to the Communion Service, I find the 
officiating clergyman called lepevs throughout. The absence of this Avord 
from the records of the primitive Gospel, and its presence in the Prayer-Book, 
is perfectly expressive of the difference in the spirit of the two systems ; — 
the difference between the Church with, and the “ Christianity without 
Priest.” 




AND WITHOUT RITUAL. 


61 


forgive sins, and dispense the decrees of the unseen world. 
I reply briefly : — 

1st. That the power here granted does not relate to the 
dispensations of the future life, but solely to what would be 
termed, in modern language, the allotment of church-mem¬ 
bership. The previous verse proves this, furnishing as it does 
a particular case of the general authority here assigned. It 
directs the Apostles under what circumstances they are to 
remove an offender from a Christian society, and treat him as 
an unconverted man, as a heathen man and a publican. 
Having given them their rule, he freely trusts the application 
of it to them: and being about to retire erelong from per¬ 
sonal intervention in the affairs of his kingdom, he assures 
them that their decisions shall be his, and that he may be 
considered as adopting in heaven their determinations upon 
earth. He simply “ consigns to his Apostles discretionary 
power to direct the affairs of his Church, and superintend the 
diffusion of the glad tidings : they may bind and loose, that 
is, open and shut the door of admission to their community, 
as their judgment may determine; employing or rejecting 
applicants for the missionary office; dissociating from their 
assemblies obstinate delinquents; receiving with openness, or 
dismissing with suspicion, each candidate for instruction, ac¬ 
cording to their estimate of his qualifications and motives.” 

2dly. It is to be observed, that there is no appearance of any 
one being in the contemplation of our Lord, beyond the per¬ 
sons immediately addressed. Not a word is said of any official 
successor or any distant age. No indication is afforded, that 
any idea of futurity was present to the mind of Jesus: and 
a title of perpetual office, an instrument creating and endow¬ 
ing an endless priesthood, ought, it will be admitted, to be 
somewhat more explicit than this. But where the power 
has been successfully claimed, the title is seldom difficult to 
prove. 

The alleged ritual of Christianity, consisting of the sacra¬ 
ments of Baptism and the Communion, will be found no less 
destitute of sanction from the Scriptures. The former we 
6 


62 


CHRISTIANITY WITHOUT PRIEST 


shall see reason to regard as simply an initiatory form, ap¬ 
plicable only to Christian converts, and limited therefore to 
adults ; the latter as purely a commemoration : neither there¬ 
fore having any sacramental or mystical efficacy. 

For baptism it is impossible to establish any supernatural 
origin. It is admitted to have existed before the Christian 
era; and to have been employed by the Jews on the admis¬ 
sion of proselytes to their religion. It is certain that it is 
not an enjoined rite in the Mosaic dispensation ; and, though 
prevalent before the period of the New Testament, is nowhere 
enforced or recognized in the writings of the Old. It arose 
therefore in the interval between the only two systems which 
Christians acknowledged to be supernatural; and must be 
considered as of natural and human origin, invested, thus far, 
with no higher authority than its own appropriateness may 
confer. There seem to have been two modes of construing 
the symbol: the one founded on the cleansing effect of the 
water on the person of the baptized himself; the other, on 
the appearance of his immersion (which was complete) to the 
eye of a spectator. The former was an image of the heathen 
convert’s purification from a foul idolatry, and his transition 
to a stainless condition under a divine and justifying law. 
The latter represented him, when he vanished in the stream, 
as interred to this world, sunk utterly from its sight; and 
when he reappeared, as emerging or born again to a better 
state ; the “ old man ” was “ buried in baptism,” and when 
he u rose again,” he had altogether “ become new.” * The 

* See Rom. vi. 2 - 4 : “ How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any 
longer therein ? Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into 
Jesus Christ were baptized into his death ? Therefore we are buried with 
him by baptism into death ; that, like as Christ was raised up from the dead 
by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.” 
Mr. Locke observes of “ St. Paul’s argument,” that it “ is to show in what 
state of life we ought to be raised out of baptism, in similitude and con¬ 
formity to that state of life Christ was raised into from the grave.” See also 
Col. ii. 12 : “ Ye are .... buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are 
risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath "raised 
him from the dead.” The force of the image clearly depends on the sinking 
and rising in the water. 



AND WITHOUT RITUAL. 


63 


ceremony then was appropriately used in any case of tran¬ 
sition from a depressed and corrupt state of existence to a 
hopeful and blessed one ; from a false or imperfect religion to 
one true and heavenly. 

But it will be said, whatever the origin of baptism, it was 
employed and sanctioned by our Lord, who commissioned 
his Apostles to go and baptize all nations. True ; but is there 
no difference between the adoption of a practice already ex¬ 
tant, — of a practice which was as much the mere institutional 
dress of the Apostles’ nation, as the sandals whose dust they 
were to shake off against the faithless were the customary 
clothing of the Apostles’ feet, — and the authoritative appoint¬ 
ment of a sacrament ? They were going forth to make con¬ 
verts : and why should they not have recourse to the form 
familiarly associated with the act ? Familiar association rec¬ 
ommended its adoption in that age and clime; and the ab¬ 
sence of such association elsewhere and in other times may 
be thought to justify its disuse. At all events, a ceremony 
thus taken up must be presumed to retain its acquired sense 
and its established extent of application: and if so, baptism 
must be strictly limited to the admission of pfoselytes from 
other faiths. This accords with the known practice of the 
Apostles, who cannot be shown to have baptized any but 
those whom they had personally, or by their missionaries, 
persuaded to become Christians. Not a single case of the 
use of the rite with children can be adduced from Scripture; 
and the only argument by which such employment of it is 
ever justified is this: that a household is said to have been 
baptized, and all nations were to receive the offer of it; and 
that the household may , the nations must , have contained chil¬ 
dren. It is evident that such reasoning could never have 
been propounded, unless the practice had existed first, and 
the defence had been found afterwards. 

With the system of infant baptism vanish almost all the 
ideas which the prevalent theology has put into the rite ; and 
it becomes as intelligible and expressive to one who believes 
in the good capacities of human nature, as to those who 


G4 


CHRISTIANITY WITHOUT PRIEST 


esteem it originally depraved. “ IIow unmeaning,” say our 
Orthodox opponents, “ is this ceremony in Unitarian hands, 
denying, as they do, the doctrines which it represents ! Of 
what regeneration can they possibly suppose it the symbol, if 
not of the washing away of that hereditary sin which they 
refuse to acknowledge ? for when the infant is brought to the 
font, he can as yet have no other guilt than this.” I reply, 
the objection has no force except against the use of infant 
baptism in our churches, — which I am not anxious to defend; 
but of course those Unitarians who employ it conceive it to 
be the token, not of any sentiments which they reject, but of 
truths and feelings which they hold dear. For myself, I 
believe, with our opponents, that the doctrine of original sin 
and the practice of infant baptism do belong to each other, 
and must stand or fall together ; and therefore deem it a fact 
very significant of tlie Apostles’ theology, that no infant can 
be shown ever to have been “ brought to the font ” by these 
first true missionaries of Christianity. And as to the new 
birth which baptism (i. e. recent and genuine discipleship to 
Jesus) may give to the maturely convinced Christian, he must 
have a great* deal to learn, not only of the Hebrew concep¬ 
tions and language in relation to the Messiah, but of the 
spirituality of the Gospel, and of the fresh creations of char¬ 
acter which it calls up, who can be much puzzled about its 
meaning. 

In Christian baptism, then, we have no sacrament with 
mystic power; but an initiatory form, possibly of consuetu¬ 
dinary obligation only; but if enjoined, applicable exclusively 
to proselytes, and misemployed in the case of infants ; a sign 
of conversion, not a means of salvation ; confided to no sa¬ 
cerdotal order, but open to every man fitted to give it an 
appropriate use. 

I turn to the Lord’s Supper ; with design to show what it 
is not, and what it is. It is not a mystery, or a sacrament, 
any more than it is an expiatory sacrifice. To persuade us 
that it has a ritual character, we are first assured that it is 
clearly the successor in the Gospel to the Passover under the 


AND WITHOUT KITUAL. 


65 


Law. Well, even if it were so, it would still be simply 
commemorative, and without any other efficacy than a festi¬ 
val, filled with great remembrances, and inspired with re¬ 
ligious joy. Such was the Paschal Feast in Jerusalem; the 
annual gathering of families and kindred, a sacred carnival 
under the spring sky and in sight of unreaped fields, when 
the memory was recalled of national deliverance, and the tale 
was told of traditional glories, and the thoughts brought back 
of bondage reversed, of the desert pilgrimage ended, of the 
promised land possessed. The Jewish festival was no more 
than this ; unless, with Archbishop Magee and others, we 
erroneously conceive it to be a proper sacrifice. So that 
those who would interpret the Lord’s Supper by the Pass- 
over have their choice between two views: that it is a simple 
commemoration; or that it is an expiatory sacrifice : in the 
former case they quit the Church of England; in the latter, 
they fall into the Church of Pome. 

But, in truth, there is no propriety in applying the name 
“ Christian Passover ” to the Communion. The notion rests 
entirely on this circumstance: that the first three Evangelists 
describe the last Supper as the Paschal Supper. But the in¬ 
stitutional part of that meal was over before the cup was dis¬ 
tributed, and the repetition of the act enjoined. Nor is there 
the slightest trace, either in the subsequent Scriptures, or in 
the earliest history of the Church, that the Communion was 
thought to bear relation to the Passover. The time, the fre¬ 
quency, the mode, of the two were altogether different. In¬ 
deed, when we observe that not one of these particulars is 
prescribed and determined by our Lord at all, when we no¬ 
tice the slight and transient manner in which he drops his 
wish that they would “ do this in remembrance of” him, when 
we compare these features of the account with the elaborate 
precision of Moses respecting hours, and materials, and dates, 
and places, and modes in the establishment of the Hebrew 
festivals, it is scarcely possible to avoid the impression, that 
we are reading narrative, not law; an utterance of personal 
affection, rather than the legislative enactment of an ever- 
6 * 


66 


CHRISTIANITY WITHOUT PRIEST 


lasting institution. However this may be, no importance 
can be attached to the reported coincidence in the time of 
that meal with the day of Passover; for the Apostle .John, 
who gives by far the fullest account of what happened at 
that table (yet never mentions the institution of the Supper), 
states that this was not the paschal meal at all, which did 
not occur, he says, till the following day of crucifixion. 

“ But,” it will be said, “ the Gospels are not the only parts 
of Scripture whence the nature of the Eucharist may be 
learned. Language is employed by St. Paul in reference to 
it, which cannot be understood of a mere memorial, and im¬ 
plies that awful consequences hung on the worthy or unwor¬ 
thy participation in the rite. Does he not even say, that a 
man may ‘ eat and drink damnation to himself, not discerning 
the Lord’s body *?” 

The passage whence these words are cited certainly throws 
great light on the institution of which we treat; but there 
must be a total disregard to the whole context and the gen¬ 
eral course of the Apostle’s reasoning before it can be made 
to yield any argument for the mystical character of the rite. 
It would appear that the Corinthian church was in the habit 
of celebrating the Lord’s Supper in a way which, even if it 
had never been disgraced by any indecorum, must have struck 
a modern Christian with wonder at its singularity. The 
members met together in one room or church, each bringing 
his own supper, of such quantity and quality as his opulence 
or poverty might allow. To this the Apostle does not object, 
but apparently considers it a part of the established arrange¬ 
ment. But these Christians were divided into factions, and 
had not learned the true uniting spirit of their faith ; nor do 
they seem to have acquired that sobriety of habit and sanc¬ 
tity of mind which their profession ought to have induced. 
When they entered the place of meeting, they broke up into 
groups and parties, class apart from class, and rich deserting 
poor: each set began its separate meal, some indulging in 
luxury and excess, others with scarce the means of keeping 
the commemoration at all; and, infamous to tell, the blessed 


AND WITHOUT RITUAL. 


G7 


Supper of the Lord was sunk into a tavern meal. So gross 
and habitual had the abuse become, that the excesses had 
affected the health and life of these guilty and unworthy par¬ 
takers. They had made no distinction between the Com¬ 
munion and an ordinary repast, had lost all perception of 
the memorial significance of their meeting, had not discrimi¬ 
nated or “ discerned the Lord’s body ”; and so they had eaten 
and drunk judgment (improperly rendered u damnation ” in 
the English Version) to themselves; and many were weak 
and sickly among them, and many even slept. Well would 
it be, if they would look on this as a chastening of the Lord; 
in which case they might take warning, and escape being cast 
out of the Church, and driven to take their chance with the 
unbelieving and heathen world. “ When we are judged, we 
are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned 
with the world.” 

In order to remedy all this corruption, St. Paul reminds 
them, that to eat and drink under the same roof, in the 
church, does not constitute proper Communion; that, to this 
end, they must not break up into sections, and retain their 
property in the food, but all participate seriously together. 
He directs that an absolute separation shall be made between 
the occasions for satisfying hunger and thirst, and those for 
observing this commemorative rite, discriminating carefully 
the memorial of the Lord’s body from everything else. He 
refers them all to the original model of the institution, the 
^parting meal of Christ before his betrayal; and by this ex¬ 
ample, as a criterion, he would have every man examine him¬ 
self, and after that pattern eat of the bread and drink of the 
cup. Hence it appears, — 

That the unworthy partaker was the riotous Corinthian, 
who made no distinction between the sacred Communion and 
a vulgar meal: 

That the judgment or damnation which such brought on 
themselves, was sickliness, weakness, and premature but nat¬ 
ural death: 

That the self-examination which the Apostle recommends 


68 


CHRISTIANITY WITHOUT PRIEST 


to the communicant is a comparison of his mode of keeping 
the rite with the original model of the last Supper: 

That in the Corinthian church there was no Priest, or 
officiating dispenser of the elements ; and that St. Paul did 
not contemplate or recommend the appointment of any such 
person. 

The Lord’s Supper, then, I conclude, was and is a simple 
commemoration. Am I asked : “ Of what ? Why, accord¬ 
ing to Unitarian views, the death on the cross merits the 
memorial more than the remaining features of our Lord’s 
history, — more even than the death of many a noble martyr, 
who has sealed his testimony to truth by like self-sacrifice ” ? 
The answer will be found at length in the Lecture on the 
Atonement, where the Scriptural conceptions of Christ’s 
death are expounded in detail. Meanwhile, it is sufficient 
to recall an idea, which has more than once been thrown 
out during this course; that, if Jesus had taken up his 
Messianic power without death, he would have remained a 
Hebrew, and been limited to the people amid whom he was 
born. He quitted his mortal personality, he left this fleshly 
tabernacle of existence, and became immortal, that his na¬ 
tionality might be destroyed, and all men drawn in as sub¬ 
jects of his reign. It was the cross that opened to the 
nations the blessed ways of life, and put us all in relations, 
not of law, but of love, to him and God. Hence the memo¬ 
rial of his death celebrates the universality and spirituality of 
the Gospel; declares the brotherhood of men, the fatherhood 
of providence,' the personal affinity of every soul with God. 
That is no empty rite which overflows with these concep¬ 
tions. 

Christianity, then, I maintain, is without Priest and with¬ 
out Ritual. It altogether coalesces with the prophetic idea 
of religion, and repudiates the sacerdotal. Christ himself 
was transcendency the Prophet. He brought down God 
to this our life, and left his spirit amid its scenes. The 
Apostles were prophets ; they carried that spirit abroad, re¬ 
vealing everywhere to men the sanctity of their nature, and 


AND WITHOUT RITUAL. 


69 


the proximity of their heaven. Nor am I even unwilling to 
admit an apostolic succession, never yet extinct, and never 
more to be extinguished. But then it is by no means a rec¬ 
tilinear regiment of incessant priests; but a broken, scattered, 
yet glorious race of prophets; the genealogy of great and 
Christian souls, through whom the primitive conceptions of 
Jesus have propagated themselves from age to age; mind 
producing mind, courage giving birth to courage, truth de¬ 
veloping truth, and love ever nurturing love, so long as one 
good and noble spirit shall act upon another. Luther surely 
was the child of Paul; and what a noble offspring has risen 
to manhood from Luther’s soul, whom to enumerate were 
to tell the best triumphs of the modern world. These are 
Christ’s true ambassadors; and never did he mean any fol¬ 
lower of his to be called a priest. He has his genuine mes¬ 
senger, wherever, in the Church or in the world, there toils 
any one of the real prophets of our race; any one who can 
create the good and great in other souls, whether by truth of 
word or deed, by the inspiration of genuine speech, or the 
better power of a life merciful and holy. 

And here, my friends, with my subject might my Lecture 
close, were it not that we are assembled now to terminate 
this controversy; and that a few remarks,in reference to its 
whole course and spirit seem to be required. 

That the recent aggression upon the principles of Unita¬ 
rian Christianity was prompted by no unworthy motive, in¬ 
dividual or political, but by a zeal, Christian so far as its 
spirit is disinterested, and unchristian only so far as it is ex¬ 
clusive, has never been doubted or denied by my brother 
ministers or myself. That much personal consideration and 
courtesy have been evinced towards us during the controversy, 
it is so grateful to us to acknowledge, that we must only re¬ 
gret the theological obstructions in the way of that mutual 
knowledge which softens the prejudices and corrects the 
errors of the closet. From such errors, the lot of our fallible 
nature, we are deeply aware that we cannot be exempt, and 


70 


CHRISTIANITY WITHOUT PRIEST 


profoundly wish that, by others’ aid or by our own, we could 
discover them. Meanwhile, we do not feel that our oppo¬ 
nents have been successful in the offer which they have made, 
of help towards this end. They are too little acquainted with 
our history and character, and have far too great a horror of 
us, to succeed in a design demanding rather the benevo¬ 
lence of sympathy and trust than that of antipathy and 
fear. Hence have arisen certain complaints and charges 
against our system and its tendencies, which, having been 
reiterated again and again in the Christ Church Lectures, 
and scarcely noticed in our own, claim a concluding observa¬ 
tion or two now. 

1. We are said to be infidels in disguise, and our system 
to be drifting fast towards utter unbelief. At all events, it is 
said we make great advances that way. 

It is by no means unusual to dismiss this charge on a whirl¬ 
wind of declamation, designed to send it and the infidel to 
the greatest possible distance. My friend who delivered the 
first Lecture noticed it in a far different spirit; and in a dis-. 
cussion where truth and wisdom had any chance, his reply 
would have prevented any recurrence to the statement. Let 
me try to imitate him in the testimony which I desire to add 
upon this point. 

Every one, I presume, who disbelieves anything, is, with 
respect to that thing, an infidel. Departure from any prev¬ 
alent and established ideas is inevitably an approach to in¬ 
fidelity ; the extent of the departure, not the reasonableness 
or propriety of it, is the sole measure of the nearness of that 
approach; which, however wise and sober, when estimated 
by a true and independent criterion, will appear, to persons 
strongly possessed by the ascendant notions, nothing less 
than alarming, amazing, awful. In short, the average popu¬ 
lar creed of the day is the mental standard, from which the 
stadia are measured off towards that invisible, remote, nay, 
even imaginary place, lodged somewhere within chaos, called 
utter unbelief. Christianity at first was blank infidelity ; and 
disciples, being of course the atheists of their day, were 


AND WITHOUT RITUAL. 


71 


thought a fit prey for the wild beasts of the amphitheatre. 
Every rejection of tradition, again, is unbelief with respect 
to it; and to those who hold its authority, it is the denial of 
an essential. It is too evident to need proof, that the average 
popular belief cannot be assumed, by any considerate per¬ 
son, as a standard of truth. To make it an objection against 
any class of men, that they depart from it, is to prove no 
error against them ; and no one, who is not willing to call in 
the passions of the multitude in suffrage on the controversies 
of the few, will condescend to enforce the charge. 

But only observe how, in the present instance, the matter 
stands. In the popular religion we discern, mixed up to¬ 
gether, two constituent portions: certain peculiar doctrines 
which characterize the common Orthodoxy; and certain uni¬ 
versal Christian truths remaining, when these are subtracted. 
The infidel throws away both of these; we throw away the 
former only; and thus far, no doubt, we partially agree with 
him. But on what grounds do we severally justify this rejec¬ 
tion ? In answer to this question, compare the views, with 
respect both to the authority and to the interpretation of 
Scripture, held by the three parties, the Trinitarian, the 
Unbeliever, the Unitarian. The Unbeliever does not usually 
find fault with the Orthodox interpretation of the Bible, but 
allows it to pass, as probably the real meaning of the book, 
only he altogether denies the divine character and authority 
of the whole religion; he therefore agrees with the Trinita¬ 
rian respecting interpretation, disagrees with him respecting 
authority. The Unitarian, again, admits the divine character 
of Christianity, but understands it differently from the Trini¬ 
tarian; he therefore reverses the former case, agrees with 
the Orthodox on the authority, disagrees respecting inter¬ 
pretation. It follows, that with the Unbeliever he agrees in 
neither, and is therefore farther from him than his Trini¬ 
tarian accuser. 

I have given this explanation from regard simply to logi¬ 
cal truth. I have no desire to join in the outcry against 
even the deliberate unbeliever in the Gospel, as if he must 


72 


CHRISTIANITY WITHOUT PRIEST 


necessarily be a fiend. Profoundly loving and trusting Chris¬ 
tianity myself, I yet feel indignant at the persecution which 
theology, policy, and law inflict on the many who, with un¬ 
deniable exercise of conscientiousness and patience of re¬ 
search, are yet unable to satisfy themselves respecting its 
evidence. The very word “ infidel” implying not simply an 
intellectual judgment, but bad moral qualities, conveys an un¬ 
merited insult, and ought to be repudiated by every generous 
disputant. The more deeply we trust Christianity, the more 
should we protest against its being defended by a body-guard 
of passions, willing to do for it precisely the services which 
they might equally render to the vulgarest imposture. 

2. We were recently accused, amid acknowledgments of 
our honesty, with want of anxiety about spiritual truth; and 
the following justification of the charge was offered: “ The 
word of God has informed us, that they who seek the truth 
shall find it; that they who ask for holy wisdom shall re¬ 
ceive it; but it must be a really anxious inquiry, — a heart¬ 
felt desire for the blessing. 4 If thou seekest her as silver, 
and searchest for her as for hid treasures, then shalt thou 
understand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of 
God.’ Such promises are express, — they cannot be broken, 
— God will give the blessing to the sincere, anxious inquirer. 
But the two qualities must go together. A man may be sin¬ 
cere in his ignorance and spiritual torpor; but let the full 
desire for God’s favor, his pardoning mercy, and his en¬ 
lightening grace spring up in the heart, and we may rest 
assured that the desire will soon be accomplished. Admit¬ 
ting, then, the sincerity of Unitarians, we doubt their anxiety, 
for we are well persuaded from God’s promises, that, if they 
possessed both, they would be delivered from their miserable 
system, and be brought to the knowledge of the truth.” * 

The praise of our “ sincerity ,” conveyed in these bland 
sentences, we are anxious to decline : not that we undervalue 


* Mr. Dalton’s Lecture on the Eternity of Future Rewards and Punish¬ 
ments, p. 760. 




AND "WITHOUT RITUAL. 


73 


the quality; but because we find, on near inspection, that it 
has all been emptied out of the word before its presentation, 
and the term comes to us hollow and worthless. It affords a 
specimen of the mode in which alone our opponents appear 
able to give any credit to heretics: many phrases of appro¬ 
bation they freely apply to us ; but they take care to draw 
off the whole meaning first. We must reject these “ Greek 
presents ”; and we are concerned that any Christian divine 
can so torture and desecrate the names of virtue, as to make 
them instruments of disparagement and injury. This play 
with words, which every conscience should hold sacred, and 
every lip pronounce with reverence, — this careless and un¬ 
meaning application of them in discourse, — indicates a loose 
adhesion to the mind of the ideas denoted by them, which 
we regard with unfeigned astonishment and grief. What, 
let me ask, can be the “ sincerity ” of an inquirer, who is not 
“ anxious ” about the truth ? How can he be “ sincerely ” per¬ 
suaded that he sees, who voluntarily shuts his eyes ? Unless 
this word is to be degraded into a synonyme for indolence and 
self-complacency, no professed seeker of truth must have the 
praise of sincerity, who does not abandon all worship of his 
own state of mind as already perfect, who is not ready to 
listen to every calm doubt as to the voice of heaven, — to un¬ 
dertake with gratitude the labor of reaching new knowl¬ 
edge,— to maintain his faith and his profession in scrupulous 
accordance with his perception of evidence; and, at any mo¬ 
ment of awakening, to spring from his most brilliant dreams 
into God’s own morning light, with a matin hymn upon his 
lips for his new birth from darkness and from sleep. The 
earnestness implied in this state of mind is perhaps not pre¬ 
cisely the same as that with which our Trinitarian opponents 
seem to be familiar. The “ anxiety ” which they appear to 
feel for themselves is, to keep their existing state of belief: 
the “ anxiety ” which they feel for us is, that we should have 
it. We are to hold ourselves ready for a change; they are 
not to be expected to desire it. If a doubt of our opinions 
should occur to us, we are to foster it carefully, and follow it 
7 


74 


CHRISTIANITY WITHOUT PRIEST 


out as a beckoning of the Holy Spirit: if a doubt of their 
sentiments should occur to them , they are to crush it on the 
spot, as a reptile-thought sent of Satan to tempt them. “ Our 
aim,” says the concluding Lecturer again, “ has been to beget 
a deep spirit of inquiry ” ; * and so has ours, I would reply: 
only you and we have severally prosecuted this aim in dif¬ 
ferent ways. We have personally listened, and personally 
inquired, and earnestly recommended all whom our influence 
could reach, to do the same: and few indeed will be the 
Unitarian libraries containing one of these series of Lectures 
that will not exhibit the other by its side. You have entered 
this controversy, evidently strange to our literature and his¬ 
tory ; and any deficiency in such reading before, has not 
been compensated by anxiety to listen now. Your people 
have been warned against us, and are taught to regard the 
study of our publications as blasphemy at second hand; and 
were they really so simple as to act upon your avowed wish 
“ to beget a deep spirit of inquiry,” and plunge into the in¬ 
vestigation of Unitarian authors, and judge for themselves of 
Unitarian worship, they would speedily hear the word of 
recall, and discover that they were practically disappointing 
the whole object of this controversy. 

Having said thus much respecting the unmeaning use of 
language in the Lecturer’s disparaging estimate of Unitarian 
u anxiety,” we may profitably direct a moment’s attention to 
the reasoning which it involves. It presents us with the 
standing fallacy of intolerance, which is sufficiently rebuked 
by being simply exhibited. Our opponents reason thus: — 

God will not permit the really anxious fatally to 
err: 

The Unitarians do fatally err: 

Therefore, The Unitarians are not really anxious. 

Now it is clear that we must conceive our opponents to be 
no less mistaken than they suppose us to be. They are as 


* Mr. Dalton's Lecture, p. 760. 



AND WITHOUT RITUAL. 


75 


far from us, as we from them; and from either point, taken 
as a standard, the measure of error must be the same. More¬ 
over, we cannot but eagerly assent to the principle of the 
Lecturer’s first premise, that God will never let the truly 
anxious fatally miss their way. So that there is nothing, in 
the nature of the case, to prevent our turning this same syllo¬ 
gism, with a change in the names of the parties, against our 
opponents. Yet we should shrink, with severe self-reproach, 
from drawing any such unfavorable conclusion respecting 
them, as they deduce of us. Accordingly, we manage our 
reasoning thus: — 

God will not permit the really anxious fatally to 
err: 

The Trinitarians show themselves to be really 
anxious: 

Therefore, The Trinitarians do not fatally err. 

Our opponents are more sure that their judgment is in the 
right, than that their neighbors’ conscience is in earnest. 
They sacrifice other men’s characters to their own self-con¬ 
fidence: we would rather distrust our self-confidence, and 
rely on the visible signs of a good and careful mind. We 
honor other men’s hearts, rather than our own heads. How 
can it be just, to make the agreement between an opponent’s 
opinion and our own the criterion of his proper conduct of 
the inquiry ? Every man feels the injury the moment the 
rule is turned against himself; and every good man should 
be ashamed to direct it against his brother. 

3. Our reverend opponents affect to have labored under 
a great disadvantage, from the absence of any recognized 
standard of Unitarian belief. “ We give you,” they say, “ our 
Articles and Creeds, which we unanimously undertake to 
defend, and which expose a definite object to all heretical 
attacks. In return, you can furnish us with no authorized 
exposition of your system, but leave us to gather our knowl¬ 
edge of it from individual writers, for whose opinions you 
refuse to be responsible, and whose reasonings, when re¬ 
futed by us, you can conveniently disown.” 


76 


CHRISTIANITY WITHOUT PRIEST 


Plausible as this complaint may appear, I venture to affirm, 
that it is vastly easier to ascertain the common belief of Uni¬ 
tarians, than that of the members of the Established Church; 
and for this plain reason, that with us there really is such a 
thing as a common faith, though defined in no confession; in 
the Anglican Church there is not, though articles and creeds 
profess it. The characteristic tenets of Unitarian Christianity 
are so simple and unambiguous, that little scope exists for 
variety in their interpretation : to the propositions expressing 
them all their professors attach distinct and the same ideas; — 
so far, at least, as such accordance is possible in relation to 
subjects inaccessible both to demonstration and to experience. 
But the Trinitarian hypothesis, venturing with presumptuous 
analysis far into the Divine psychology, presents us with 
ideas confessedly inapprehensible; propounded in language 
which, if used in its ordinary sense, is self-contradictory, and 
if not, is unmeaning, and ready in its emptiness to be filled 
by any arbitrary interpretation; — and actually understood so 
variously by those who subscribe to them, that the Calvinist 
and the Arminian, the Tritheist and the Sabellian, unite to 
praise them. Indeed, in the history of the English Church, 
so visible is the sweep of the centre of Orthodoxy over the 
whole space from the confines of Romanism to the verge of 
Unitarianism, that our ecclesiastical chronology is measured 
by its oscillations. Our respected opponents know full well, 
that it is not necessary to search beyond the clergy of this 
town, or even beyond the morning and afternoon preaching 
in one and the same church, in order to encounter greater 
contrasts in theology, than could be found in a whole library 
of Unitarian divinity. What mockery, then, to refer us to 
these articles as expositions of clerical belief, when the mo¬ 
ment we pass beyond the words, and address ourselves to the 
sense, every shade of contrariety appears ; and no one definite 
conception can be adopted of such a doctrine as that of the 
Trinity, without some church expositor or other starting up 
to rebuke it as a misrepresentation ! How poor the pride of 
uniformity, which contents itself with lip-service to the sym¬ 
bol, in the midst of heart-burnings about the reality! 


AND WITHOUT RITUAL. 


77 


In order to test the force of the objection to which I am 
referring, let us advert, in detail, to the topics which exhibit 
the Unitarian and Trinitarian theology in most direct oppo¬ 
sition. It will appear that the advantage of unity lies, in this 
instance, on the side of heresy; and that, if multiformity be 
a prime characteristic of error, there is a wide difference 
between orthodoxy and truth. There are four great subjects 
comprised in the controversy between the Church and our¬ 
selves : the nature of God; of Christ; of sin ; of punishment. 
On these several points (which, considered as involving on 
our part denials of previous ideas, may be regarded as con¬ 
taining the negative elements of our belief) all our modern 
writers, without material variation or exception, maintain the 
following doctrines : — 

Unitarian Doctrines, opposed to Church Doctrines. 


1. The Personal Unity of God. 

2. The Simplicity of Nature in 

Christ. 

'3. The Personal Origin and 
Identity of Sin. 

4. The Finite Duration of Fu¬ 
ture Suffering. 


1. The Trinity in Unity. 

2. Two Distinct Natures in 

Christ. 

3. The Transferable Nature 

and Vicarious Remov¬ 
al of Sin. 

4. The Eternity of Hell 

Torments. 


Now no one at all familiar with polemical literature can 
deny that the modes and ambiguities of doctrine comprised 
in this Trinitarian list are more numerous than can be de¬ 
tected in the parallel “ heresies.” I am willing, indeed, to 
admit an exception in respect to the last of the topics, and to 
allow that the belief in the finite duration of future punishment 
has opposed itself, in two forms, to the single doctrine of 
everlasting torments. But when the systems are compared 
at their other corresponding points, the boast of orthodox 
uniformity instantly vanishes. Since the primitive jealousy 
between the Jewish and Gentile Christianity, the rivalry be¬ 
tween the “ Monarchy ” and the “ Economy,” the believers 
7* 


78 


CHRISTIANITY WITHOUT PRIEST 


in the personal unity of God, though often severed by ages 
from each other, have held that majestic truth in one un¬ 
varied form. Never was there an idea so often lost and re¬ 
covered, yet so absolutely unchanged: a sublime but occa¬ 
sional visitant of the human mind, assuring us of the perpetual 
oneness of our own nature, as well as the Divine. We can 
point to no unbroken continuity of our great doctrine : and 
if we could, we should appeal with no confidence to the 
evidence of so dubious a phenomenon ; for if a system of 
ideas once gains possession of society, and attracts to itself 
complicated interests and feelings, many causes may suffice 
to insure its indefinite preservation. But we can point to a 
greater phenomenon : to the long and repeated extinction of 
our favorite belief, to its submersion beneath a dark and 
restless fanaticism; and its invariable resurrection, like a 
necessary intuition of the soul, in times of purer light, with 
its features still the same; stamped with imperishable identity 
of truth, and, like him to whom it refers, without variableness 
or shadow of a turning. Meanwhile, who will undertake to 
enumerate and define the succession of Trinities by which 
this doctrine has been bewildered and banished ? Passing 
by the Aristotelian, the Platonic, the Ciceronian, the Carte¬ 
sian Trinity, — quitting the stormy disputes and contradictory 
decisions of the early councils, shall we find among even the 
modern fathers of our National Church any approach to 
unanimity ? Am I to be content with the doctrine of Bishop 
Bull, and subordinate the Son to the Father as the sole foun¬ 
tain of divinity ? Or must I rise to the Tritheism of Water- 
land and Sherlock ? or, accepting the famous decision of the 
University of Oxford, descend, with Archbishop Whately, 
to the modal Trinity of South and Wallis ? Are we to 
understand the phrase, three persons, to mean three beings 
united by “ perichoresis,” three “ mutual inexistences,” three 
u modes,” three “ differences,” three u contemplations,” or 
three “ somewhats ”; or, being told that this is but a vain 
prying into a mystery, shall we be satisfied to leave the 
phrase without idea at all ? It is to the last degree astonish- 


AND WITHOUT RITUAL. 


79 


ing to hear from Trinitarian divines the praises of uniformity 
of belief; seeing that it is one of the chief labors of eccle¬ 
siastical history to record the incessant effort, vain to the 
present day, to give some stability of meaning to the funda¬ 
mental doctrines of their faith. 

The same remark applies, with little modification, to the 
opposite views respecting the person of the Saviour. It is 
true, that Unitarians, agreed respecting the singleness of 
nature in Christ, differ respecting the natural rank of that 
nature, whether his soul were human or angelic. But, for 
this solitary variety jpnong these heretics, how many doc¬ 
trines of the Logos and the Incarnation does Orthodox 
literature contain ? Can any one affirm, that, when the Coun¬ 
cil of Ephesus had arbitrated between the Eutychian doc¬ 
trine of absorption, and the Nestorian doctrine of separation, 
all doubt and ambiguity was removed by the magic phrase 
“ hypostatic union ” ? Since the monophysite contest was 
at its height, has the Virgin Mary been left in undisputed 
possession of her title as “ Mother of God ” ? Has the Eter¬ 
nal Generation of the Son encountered no orthodox sus¬ 
picions, and the Indwelling scheme received no orthodox 
support ? And if we ask these questions: “ What respec¬ 
tively happened to the two natures on the cross ? what has 
become of Christ’s human soul now ? is it separate from the 
Godhead, like any other immortal spirit, or is it added to the 
Deity, so as to introduce into his nature a new and fourth 
element ? ” shall we receive from the many voices of the 
Church but one accordant answer ? Nay, do the authors of 
this controversy suppose that, during its short continuance, 
they have been able to maintain their unanimity ? If they 
do, I believe that any reader who thinks it worth while to 
register the varieties of error, would be able to undeceive 
them. If the diversities of doctrine cannot easily and often 
be shown to amount to palpable inconsistencies, this must be 
ascribed, I believe, to the mystic and technical phraseology, 
the substitute rather than the expression for precise ideas, — 
which has become the vernacular dialect of orthodox divinity. 


80 


CHRISTIANITY WITHOUT PRIEST 


The jargon of theology affords a field too barren to bear so 
vigorous a weed as an undisputed contradiction. 

It is needless to dwell on the numerous forms under which 
the doctrine of Atonement has been held by those who sub¬ 
scribe the articles of our National Church; while its Unitarian 
opponents have taken their fixed station on the personal 
character and untransferable nature of sin. One writer tells 
us that only the human nature perished on the cross ; another, 
that God himself expired: some say, that Christ suffered no 
more intensely, but only more “ meritoriously,” than many a 
martyr; others, that he endured the jrhole quantity of tor¬ 
ment due to the wicked whom he redeemed : some, that it is 
the spotlessness of his manhood that is imputed to believers ; 
others, that it is the holiness of his Deity. From the high 
doctrine of satisfaction to the very verge of Unitarian heresy, 
every variety of interpretation has been given to the language 
of the established formularies respecting Christian redemp¬ 
tion. Nor is it yet determined whether, in the lottery of 
opinion, the name of Owen, Sykes, or Magee shall be drawn 
for the prize of orthodoxy. 

And if, from those parts of our belief to which the acci¬ 
dents of their historical origin have given a negative char¬ 
acter, we turn to those which are positive , not the slightest 
reason will appear for charging them with uncertainty and 
fluctuation. All Unitarian writers maintain the Moral Per¬ 
fection and Fatherly Providence of the Infinite Ruler; the 
Messiahship of Jesus Christ, in whose person and spirit there 
is a Revelation of God and a Sanctification for Man; the 
Responsibility and Retributive Immortality of men; and the 
need of a pure and devout heart of Faith, as the source of all 
outward goodness and inward communion with God. These 
great and self-luminous points, bound together by natural 
affinity, constitute the fixed centre of our religion. And on 
subjects beyond this centre we have no wider divergences 
than are found among those who attach themselves to an 
opposite system. For example, the relations between Scrip¬ 
ture and Reason, as evidences and guides in questions of doc- 


AND WITHOUT RITUAL. 


81 


trine, are not more unsettled among us, than are the relations 
between Scripture and Tradition in the Church. Nor is the 
perpetual authority of the “ Christian rites ” so much in 
debate among our ministers, as the efficacy of the sacraments 
among the clergy. In truth, our diversities of sentiment 
affect far less what we believe, than the question why we 
believe it. Different modes of reasoning, and different results 
of interpretation, are no doubt to be found among our several 
authors. We all make our appeal to the records of Chris¬ 
tianity ; but we have voted no particular commentator into 
the seat of authority. And is not this equally true of our 
opponents’ Church ? Their articles and creeds furnish no 
textual expositions of Scripture, but only results and deduc¬ 
tions from its study. And so variously have these results 
been elicited from the sacred writings, that scarcely a text can 
be adduced in defence of the Trinitarian scheme, which some 
witness unexceptionably orthodox may not be summoned to 
prove inapplicable. In fine, we have no greater variety of 
critical and exegetical opinion than the divines from whom we 
dissent; while the system of Christianity in which our Scrip¬ 
tural labors have issued, has its leading characteristics better 
determined and more apprehensible than the scheme which 
the articles and creeds have vainly labored to define. 

The refusal to embody our sentiments in any authoritative 
formula appears to strike observers as a whimsical exception 
to the general practice of churches. The peculiarity has had 
its origin in hereditary and historical associations; but it has 
its defence in the noblest principles of religious freedom and 
Christian communion. At present, it must suffice to say, 
that our societies are dedicated, not to theological opinions, 
but to religious worship; that they have maintained the 
unity of the spirit, without insisting on any unity of doc¬ 
trine ; that Christian liberty, love, and piety are their essen¬ 
tials in perpetuity, but their Unitarianism an accident of a 
few or many generations, — which has arisen, and might 
vanish, without the loss of their identity. We believe in the 
mutability of religious systems, but the imperishable char- 


82 


CHRISTIANITY WITHOUT PRIEST, ETC. 


acter of the religious affections ; — in the progressiveness of 
opinion within, as well as without, the limits of Christianity. 
Our forefathers cherished the same conviction; and so, not 
having been born intellectual bondsmen, we desire to leave 
our successors free. Convinced that uniformity of doctrine 
can never prevail, we seek to attain its only good — peace on 
earth and communion with Heaven—without it. We aim to 
make a true Christendom, — a commonwealth of the faithful, 
— by the binding force, not of ecclesiastical creeds, but of 
spiritual wants and Christian sympathies ; and indulge the 
vision of a Church that “ in the latter days shall arise,” like 
“ the mountain of the Lord,” bearing on its ascent the bios-* 
soms of thought proper to every intellectual clime, and withal 
massively rooted in the deep places of our humanity, and 
gladly rising to meet the sunshine from on high. 

And now, friends and brethren, let us say a glad farewell 
to the fretfulness of controversy, and retreat again, with 
thanksgiving, into the interior of our own venerated truth. 
Having come forth, at the severer call of duty, to do battle 
for it, with such force as God vouchsafes to the sincere, let 
us go in to live and worship beneath -its shelter. They tell 
you it is not the true faith. Perhaps not; but then you 
think it so ; and that is enough to make your duty clear, and 
to draw from it, as from nothing else, the very peace of God. 
May be, we are on our way to something better, unexistent 
and unseen as yet, which may penetrate our souls with nobler 
affection, and give a fresh spontaneity of love to God and all 
immortal things. Perhaps there cannot be the truest life of 
faith, except in scattered individuals, till this age of conflicting 
doubt and dogmatism shall have passed away. Dark and 
leaden clouds of materialism hide the heaven from us; red 
gleams of fanaticism pierce through, vainly striving to reveal 
it; and not till the weight is heaved from off the air, and the 
thunders roll down the horizon, will the serene light of God 
flow upon us, and the blue infinite embrace us again. Mean¬ 
while we must reverently love the faith we have ; to quit it for 
one that we have not, were to lose the breath of life and die. 


INCONSISTENCY OF THE SCHEME OF VICA¬ 
RIOUS REDEMPTION. 


u Neither is there salvation in any other ; for there is none other name under 

heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” — Acts iv. 12. 

The scene which we have this evening to visit and explore, 
is separated from us by the space of eighteen centuries; yet 
of nothing on this earth has Providence left, within the 
shadows of the past, so vivid and divine an image. Gently 
rising above the mighty “ field of the world,” Calvary’s 
mournful hill appears, covered w r ith silence now, but dis¬ 
tinctly showing the heavenly light that struggled there 
through the stormiest elements of guilt. Nor need we only 
gaze, as on a motionless picture that closes the vista of Chris¬ 
tian ages. Permitting history to take us by the hand, we 
may pace back in pilgrimage to the hour, till its groups stand 
around us, and pass by us, and its voices of passion and of 
grief mock and wail upon our ear. As we mingle with the 
crowd which, amid noise and dust, follows the condemned 
prisoners to the place of execution, and fix our eye on the 
faint and panting figure of one that bears his cross, could 
we but whisper to the sleek priests close by, how might we 
startle them, by telling them the future fate of this brief 
tragedy, — brief in act, in blessing everlasting; that this 
Galilean convict shall be the world’s confessed deliverer, 
while they that have brought him to this shall be the scorn 
and by-word of the nations; that that vile instrument of tor¬ 
ture, now so abject that it makes the dying slave more servile, 



84 


INCONSISTENCY OF TIIE 


shall be made, by this victim and this hour, the symbol of 
whatever is holy and sublime ; the emblem of hope and love ; 
pressed to the lips of ages; consecrated by a veneration which 
makes the sceptre seem trivial as an infant’s toy. Meanwhile, 
the sacerdotal hypocrites, unconscious of the part they play, 
watch to the end the public murder which they have pri¬ 
vately suborned; stealing a phrase from Scripture, that they 
may mock with holy lips; and leaving to the plebeian soldiers 
the mutual jest and brutal laugh, that serve to beguile the 
hired but hated work of agony, and that draw forth from the 
sufferer that burst of forgiving prayer, which sunk at least 
into their centurion’s heart. One there is, who should have 
been spared the hearing of these scoffs; and perhaps she 
heard them not; for before his nature was exhausted more, 
his eye detects and his voice addresses her, and twines round 
her the filial arm of that disciple, who had been ever the most 
loving as well as most beloved. She at least lost the religion 
of that hour'in its humanity, and beheld not the prophet, but 
the son: — had not her own hands wrought that seamless 
robe for which the soldiers’ lot is cast; and her own lips 
taught him that strain of sacred poetry, “ My God, my God, 
why hast thou forsaken me ? ” but never had she thought to 
hear it thus. As the cries become fainter and fainter, scarcely 
do they reach Peter standing afar off. The last notice of him 
had been the rebuking look that sent him to weep bitterly; 
and now the voice that alone can tell him his forgiveness will 
soon be gone! Broken hardly less, though without remorse, 
is the youthful John, to see that head, lately resting on his 
bosom, drooping passively in death; and to hear the involun¬ 
tary shriek of Mary, as the spear struck upon the lifeless 
body, moving now only as it is moved; — whence he alone, on 
whom she leaned, records the fact. "Well might the Galilean 
friends stand at a distance gazing; pnable to depart, yet not 
daring to approach; well might the multitudes that had cried 
“ Crucify him! ” in the morning, shudder at the thought of that 
clamor ere night; “ beholding the things that had come to 
pass, they smote their breasts and returned.” 



SCHEME OF VICARIOUS REDEMPTION. 


85 


This is the scene of which we have to seek the interpreta¬ 
tion. Our first natural impression is, that it requires no in¬ 
terpretation, but speaks for itself; that it has no mystery, 
except that which belongs to the triumphs of deep guilt, and 
the sanctities of disinterested love. To raise our eye to that 
serene countenance, to listen to that submissive voice, to 
note the subjects of its utterance, would give us no idea of 
any mystic horror concealed behind the human features of 
the scene; of any invisible contortions, as from the lash of 
demons, in the soul of that holy victim; of any sympathetic 
connection of that cross with the bottomless pit on the one 
hand, and the highest heaven on the other; of any moral 
revolution throughout our portion of the universe, of which 
this public execution is but the outward signal. The his-, 
torians drop no hint that its sufferings, its affections, its re¬ 
lations, were other than human, — raised indeed to distinction 
by miraculous accompaniments; but intrinsically, however 
signally, human. They mention, as if bearing some appre¬ 
ciable proportion to the whole series of incidents, particulars 
so slight, as to vanish before any other than the obvious his¬ 
torical view of the transaction; the thirst, the sponge, the 
rent clothes, the mingled drink. They ascribe no sentiment 
to the crucified, except such as might be expressed by one 
of like nature with ourselves, in the consciousness of a fin¬ 
ished work of duty, and a fidelity never broken under the 
strain of heaviest trial. The narrative is clearly the produc¬ 
tion of minds filled, not with theological anticipations, but 
with historical recollections. 

With this view of Christ’s death, which is such as might 
be entertained by any of the primitive churches, having one 
of the Gospels only, without any of the Epistles, we are 
content. I conceive of it, then, as manifesting the last degree 
of moral perfection in the Holy One of God; and believe 
that, in thus being an expression of character, it has its pri¬ 
mary and everlasting value. I conceive of it as the needful 
preliminary to his resurrection and ascension, by which the 
severest difficulties in the theory of Providence, life, and 
8 


86 


INCONSISTENCY OF THE 


duty are alleviated or solved. I conceive of it as imme¬ 
diately procuring the universality and spirituality of the 
Gospel; by dissolving those corporeal ties which gave nation¬ 
ality to Jesus, and making him, in his heavenly and immortal 
form, the Messiah of humanity; blessing, sanctifying, regen¬ 
erating, not a people from the centre of Jerusalem, but a 
world from his station in the heavens. And these views, 
under unimportant modifications, I submit, are the only ones 
of which Scripture contains a trace. 

All this, however, we are assured, is the mere outside 
aspect of the crucifixion ; and wholly insignificant compared 
with the invisible character and relations of the scene; 
which, localized only on earth, has its chief effect in hell; 
.and, though presenting itself among the occurrences of time, 
is a repeal of the decretals of Eternity. The being who 
hangs upon that cross is not man alone; but also the ever¬ 
lasting God, who created and upholds all things, even the sun 
that now darkens its face upon him, and the murderers who 
are waiting for his expiring cry. The anguish he endures is 
not chiefly that which falls so poignantly on the eye and ear 
of the spectator; the injured human affections, the dreadful 
momentary doubt; the pulses of physical torture, doubling 
on him with full or broken wave, till driven back by the 
overwhelming power of love disinterested and divine. But 
he is judicially abandoned by the Infinite Father; who ex¬ 
pends on him the immeasurable wrath due to an apostate 
race, gathers up into an hour the lightnings of Eternity, and 
lets them loose upon that bended head. It is the moment of 
retributive justice; the expiation of all human guilt: that 
open brow hides beneath it the despair of millions of men; 
and to the intensity of agony there, no human wail could give 
expression. Meanwhile, the future brightens on the elect; the 
tempests that hung over their horizon are spent. The ven¬ 
geance of the lawgiver having had its way, the sunshine of a 
Father’s grace breaks forth, and lights up, with hope and 
beauty, the earth, which had been a desert of despair and 
sin. According to this theory, Christ, in his death, was a 


SCHEME OF VICARIOUS REDEMPTION. 


87 


proper expiatory sacrifice ; he turned aside, by enduring it 
for them, the infinite punishment of sin from all past or 
• future believers in this efficacy of the cross; and trans¬ 
ferred to them the natural rewards of his own righteous¬ 
ness. An acceptance of this doctrine is declared to be the 
prime condition of the Divine forgiveness ; for no one who 
does not see the pardon can have it. And this pardon, again, 
this clear score for the past, is a necessary preliminary to all 
sanctification ; to all practical opening of a disinterested heart 
towards our Creator and man. Pardon, and the perception 
of it, are the needful preludes to that conforming love to God 
and men, which is the true Christian salvation. 

The evidence in support of this theory is derived partly 
from natural appearances, partly from Scriptural announce¬ 
ments. Involving, as it does, statements respecting the ac¬ 
tual condition of human nature, and the world in which we 
live, some appeal to experience, and to the rational interpre¬ 
tation of life and Providence, is inevitable; and hence cer¬ 
tain propositions, affecting to be of a philosophical character, 
are laid down as fundamental by the advocates of this system. 
Yet it is admitted, that direct revelation only could have ac¬ 
quainted us, either with our lost condition, or our vicarious 
recovery; and that all we can expect to accomplish with 
nature, is to harmonize what we observe there with what we 
read in the written records of God’s will; so that the main 
stress of the argument rests on the interpretation of Scrip¬ 
ture. The principles deduced from the nature of things, and 
laid down as a basis for this doctrine, may be thus repre¬ 
sented : — 

That man needs a Redeemer; having obviously fallen, by 
some disaster, into a state of misery and guilt, from which 
the worst penal consequences must be apprehended; and were 
it not for the probability of such lapse from the condition in 
which it was fashioned, it would be impossible to reconcile 
the phenomena of the world with the justice and benevolence 
of its Creator. 

That Deity only can redeem; since, to preserve veracity, 


88 


INCONSISTENCY OF THE 


the penalty of sin must be inflicted; and the diversion only, 
not the annihilation of it, is possible. To let it fall on angels 
would fail of the desired end; because human sin, having* 
been directed against an Infinite Being, has incurred an in¬ 
finitude of punishment; which on no created beings could 
be exhausted in any period short of eternity. Only a nature 
strictly infinite can compress within itself, in the compass of 
an hour, the woes distributed over the immortality of man¬ 
kind. Hence, were God personally One, like man, no re¬ 
demption could be effected; for there would be no Deity to 
suffer, except the very One who must punish. But the tri- 
plicity of the Godhead relieves all difficulty; for, while one 
Infinite inflicts, another Infinite endures; and resources are 
furnished for the atonement. 

Amid a great variety of forms in which the theory of atone¬ 
ment exists, I have selected the foregoing; which, if I un¬ 
derstand aright, is that which is vindicated in the present 
controversy. I am not aware that I have added anything to 
the language in which it is stated by its powerful advocate, 
unless it be a few phrases, leaving its essential meaning the 
same, but needful to render it compact and clear. 

The Scriptural evidence is found principally in certain of 
the Apostolical Epistles; and this circumstance will render it 
necessary to conduct a separate search into the historical 
writings of the New Testament, that we may ascertain how 
they express the corresponding set of ideas. Taking up suc¬ 
cessively these two branches of the subject, the natural and 
the Biblical, I propose to show, first, that this doctrine is in¬ 
consistent with itself; secondly, that it is inconsistent with the 
Christian idea of salvation. 

I. It is inconsistent with itself. 

(1.) In its manner of treating the principles of natural 
religion. 

Our faith in the infinite benevolence of God is represented 
as destitute of adequate support from the testimony of na¬ 
ture. It requires, we are assured, the suppression of a mass 
of appearances, that would scare it away in an instant, were 


SCHEME OF VICARIOUS REDEMPTION. 


89 


it to venture into their presence; and is a dream of sickly 
and effeminate minds, whose belief is the inward growth 
of amiable sentimentality, rather than a genuine production 
from God’s own facts. The appeal to the order and mag¬ 
nificence of creation, to the structures and relations of the 
inorganic, the vegetable, the animal, the spiritual forms, that 
fill the ascending ranks of this visible and conscious universe; 
— to the arrangements which make it a blessing to be born, 
far more than a suffering to die, — which, enable us to extract 
the relish of life from its toils, the affections of our nature 
from its sufferings, the triumphs of goodness from its temp¬ 
tations ; — to the seeming plan of general progress, which 
elicits truth by the self-destruction of error, and by the ex¬ 
tinction of generations gives perpetual rejuvenescence to the 
world ; — this appeal, which is another name for the scheme of 
natural religion, is dismissed with scorn; and sin and sorrow 
and death are flung in defiance across our path, — barriers 
which we must remove, ere we can reach the presence of a 
benignant God. Come with us, it is said, and listen to the 
wail of the sick infant; look into the dingy haunts where 
poverty moans its life away; bend down your ear to the ac¬ 
cursed hum that strays from the busy hives of guilt; spy 
into the hold of the slave-ship ; from the factory follow the 
wasted child to the gin-shop first, and then to the cellar 
called its home; or look even at your own tempted and sin- 
bound souls, and your own perishing race, snatched off into 
the dark by handfuls through the activity of a destroying 
God; and tell us, did our benevolent Creator make a crea¬ 
ture and a world like this ? A Calvinist who puts this ques¬ 
tion is playing with fire. But I answer the question ex¬ 
plicitly : All these things we have met steadily, and face to 
face ; in full view of them, we have taken up our faith in the 
goodness of God; and in full view of them we will hold fast 
that faith. Nor is it just or true to affirm, that our system 
hides these evJs, or that our practice refuses to grapple with 
them. And if you confess that these ills of life would be too 
much for your natural piety, if you declare, that these rugged 
8 * 


90 


INCONSISTENCY OF THE 


foundations and tempestuous elements of Providence would 
starve and crush your confidence in God, while ours strikes 
its roots in the rock, and throws out its branches to brave 
the storm, are you entitled to taunt us with a faith of puny 
growth? Meanwhile, we willingly assent to the principle 
which this appeal to evil is designed to establish; that, 
with much apparent order, there is some apparent disorder 
in the phenomena of the world; that from the latter, by 
itself, we should be unable to infer any goodness and benev¬ 
olence in God; and that, were not the former clearly the 
predominant result of natural laws, the character of the Great 
Cause of all things would be involved in agonizing gloom. 
The mass of physical and moral evil we do not profess 
fully to explain; we think that in no system whatever is 
there any approach to an explanation; and we are accus¬ 
tomed to touch on that dread subject with the humility of 
filial trust, not with the confidence of dogmatic elucidation. 

Surely the fall of our first parents, I shall be reminded, 
gives the requisite solution. The disaster which then befell 
the human race has changed the primeval constitution of 
things ; introduced mortality and all the infirmities of w hich 
it is the result; introduced sin, and all the seeds of vile affec¬ 
tions which it compels us to inherit; introduced also the 
penalties of sin, visible in part on this scene of life, and de¬ 
veloping themselves in another in anguish everlasting. Fresh 
from the hand of his Creator, man w r as innocent, happy, and 
holy; and he it is, not God, who has deformed the world 
with guilt and grief. 

Now, as a statement of fact , all this may or may not be 
true. Of this I say nothing. But who does not see that, as 
an explanation , it is inconsistent with itself, partial in its 
application, and leaves matters incomparably worse than it 
found them? It is inconsistent with itself; for Adam, per¬ 
fectly pure and holy as he is reputed to have been, gave the 
only proof that could exist of his being neither, by succumb¬ 
ing to the first temptation that came in his way ; and though 
finding no enjoyment but in the contemplation of God, gave 


SCHEME OF VICARIOUS REDEMPTION. 91 

himself up to the first advances of the Devil. Never surely 
was a reputation for sanctity so cheaply won. The canoniza¬ 
tions of the Romish Calendar have been curiously bestowed 
on beings sufficiently remote from just ideas of excellence; 
but usually there is something to be affirmed of them, legen¬ 
dary or otherwise, which, if true , might justify a momentary 
admiration But our first parent was not laid even under this 
necessity, to obtain a glory greater than canonization ; he had 
simply to do nothing, except to fall, in order to be esteemed 
the most perfectly holy of created minds. Most partial, too, 
is this theory in its application; for disease and hardship, and 
death unmerited as the infant’s, afflict the lower animal crea¬ 
tion. Is this, too, the result of the fall ? If so, it is an un¬ 
redeemed effect; if not, it presses on the benevolence of the 
Maker, and, by the physical analogies which connect man 
with the inferior creatures, forces on us the impression, that 
his corporeal sufferings have an original source not dissimilar 
from theirs. And again, this explanation only serves to make 
matters worse than before. For how puerile is it to suppose 
that men will rest satisfied with tracing back their ills to 
Adam, and refrain from asking who was Adam’s cause! And 
then comes upon us at once the ancient dilemma about evil; 
was it a mistake, or was it malignity, that created so poor a 
creature as our progenitor, and staked on so precarious a will 
the blessedness of a race and the well-being of a world ? So 
far, this theory, falsely and injuriously ascribed to Christianity, 
would leave us where we were : but it carries us into deeper 
and gratuitous difficulties, of which natural religion knows 
nothing, by appending eternal consequences to Adam’s trans¬ 
gression ; a large portion of which, after the most sanguine 
extension of the efficacy of the atonement, must remain unre¬ 
deemed. So that if, under the eye of naturalism, the world, 
with its generations dropping into the grave, must appear (as 
we heard it recently described *) like the populous precincts 


* See Rev. II. M'Neile’s Lecture, The Proper Deity of our Lord the only 
Ground of Consistency in the Work of Redemption, pp. 339, 340. 



92 


INCONSISTENCY OF THE 


of some castle, whose governor called his servants, after a 
brief indulgence of liberty and peace, into a dark and inscru¬ 
table dungeon, never to return or be seen again, the only 
new feature which this theory introduces into the prospect is 
this: that the interior of that cavernous prison-house is dis¬ 
closed; and while a few of the departed are seen to have 
emerged into a fairer light, and to be traversing greener fields, 
and sharing a more blessed liberty than they knew before, the 
vast multitude are discerned in the gripe of everlasting chains 
and the twist of unimaginable torture. And all this infliction 
is a penal consequence of a first ancestor’s transgression! 
Singular spectacle to be offered in vindication of the character 
of God! 

We are warned, however, not to start back from this repre¬ 
sentation, or to indulge in any rash expression at the view 
which it gives of the justice of the Most High; for that, 
beyond all doubt, parallel instances occur in the operations 
of nature; and that, if the system deduced from Scripture 
accords with that which is in action in the creation, there 
arises a strong presumption that both are from the same 
Author. The arrangement which is the prime subject of ob¬ 
jection in the foregoing theory, viz. the vicarious transmission 
of consequences from acts of vice and virtue, is said to be 
familiar to our observation as a fact; and ought, therefore, to 
present no difficulties in the way of the admission of a doc¬ 
trine. Is it not obvious, for example, that the guilt of a 
parent may entail disease and premature death on his child, 
or even remoter descendants ? And if it be consistent with 
the Divine perfections that the innocent should suffer for 
others’ sins at the distance of one generation, why not at the 
distance of a thousand? The guiltless victim is not more 
completely severed from identity with Adam, than he is from 
identity with his own father. My reply is brief: I admit 
both the fact and the analogy; but the fact is of the excep¬ 
tional kind, from which, by itself, I could not infer the justice 
or the benevolence of the Creator; and which, were it of 
large and prevalent amount, I could not even reconcile with 


SCHEME OF VICARIOUS REDEMPTION. 


.93 


these perfections. If then you take it out of the list of ex¬ 
ceptions and difficulties, and erect it into a cardinal rule, if 
you interpret by it the whole invisible portion of God’s gov¬ 
ernment, you turn the scale at once against the character of 
the Supreme, and plant creation under a tyrant’s sway. And 
this is the fatal principle pervading all analogical arguments 
in defence of Trinitarian Christianity. No resemblances to 
the system can be found in the universe, except in those 
anomalies and seeming deformities which perplex the student 
of Providence, and which would undermine his faith, were 
they not lost in the vast spectacle of beauty and of good. 
These disorders are selected and spread out to view, as speci¬ 
mens of the Divine government of nature; the mysteries and 
horrors which offend us in the popular theology are extended 
by their side; the comparison is made, point by point, till the 
similitude is undeniably made out; and when the argument is 
closed it amounts to this : Do you doubt whether God could 
break men’s limbs ? You mistake his strength of character; 
only see how he puts out their eyes! What kind of impres¬ 
sion this reasoning may have, seems to me doubtful even to 
agony. Both Trinitarian theology and nature, it is trium¬ 
phantly urged, must proceed from the same Author; ay, but 
what sort of author is that ? You have led me, in your quest 
after analogies, through the great infirmary of God’s creation ; 
and so haunted am I by the sights and sounds of the lazar- 
liouse, that scarce can I believe in anything but pestilence ; so 
sick of soul have I become, that the mountain breeze has lost 
its scent of health; and you say, it is all the same in the 
other world, and wherever the same rule extends: then I 
know my fate, that in this universe Justice has no throne. 
And thus, my friends, it comes to pass, that these reasoners 
often gain indeed their victory; but it is known only to the 
Searcher of Hearts, whether it is a victory against natural 
religion, or in favor of revealed. For this reason I consider 
the “ Analogy ” of Bishop Butler (one of the profoundest of 
thinkers, and on purely moral subjects one of the justest too) 
as containing, with a design directly contrary, the most terrible 


94 . 


INCONSISTENCY OF THE 


persuasives to Atheism that have ever been produced. The 
essential error consists in selecting the difficulties, — which 
are the rare, exceptional phenomena of nature, — as the basis 
of analogy and argument. In the comprehensive and gener¬ 
ous study of Providence, the mind may, indeed, already have 
overcome the difficulties, and, with the lights recently gained 
from the harmony, design, and order of creation, have made 
those shadows pass imperceptibly away; but when forced 
again into their very centre, compelled to adopt them as a 
fixed station and point of mental vision, they deepen round 
the heart again, and, instead of illustrating anything, become 
solid darkness themselves. 

I cannot quit this topic without observing, however, that 
there appears to be nothing in nature and life at all analo¬ 
gous to the vicarious principle attributed to God in the 
Trinitarian scheme of Redemption. There is nowhere to be 
found any proper transfer or exchange, either of the qualities, 
or of the consequences, of vice and virtue. The good and 
evil acts of men do indeed affect others as well as themselves ♦, 
the innocent suffer with the guilty, as in the case before ad¬ 
duced, of a child suffering in health by the excesses of a 
parent. But there is here no endurance for another, similar 
to Christ’s alleged endurance in the place of men; the in¬ 
fliction on the child is not deducted from the parent; it does 
nothing to lighten his load, or make it less than it would 
have been, had he been without descendants; nor does any 
one suppose his guilt alleviated by the existence of this in¬ 
nocent fellow-sufferer. There is a nearer approach to anal¬ 
ogy in those cases of crime, where the perpetrator seems to 
escape, and to leave the consequences of his act to descend 
on others; as when the successful cheat eludes pursuit, and 
from the stolen gains of neighbors constructs a life of luxury 
for himself; or when a spendthrift government, forgetful of 
its high trust, turning the professions of patriotism into a 
lie, is permitted to run a prosperous career for one genera¬ 
tion, and is personally gone before the popular retribution 
falls, in the next, on innocent successors. Here, no doubt, 


SCHEME OF VICARIOUS REDEMPTION. 


95 


the harmless suffer by the guilty, in a certain sense in the 
jplace of the guilty: but not in the sense which the analogy 
requires. For there is still no substitution; the distress of 
the unoffending party is not struck out of the offender’s pun¬ 
ishment ; does not lessen, but rather aggravates, his guilt; 
and, instead of fitting him for pardon, tempts the natural 
sentiments of justice to follow him with severer condemna¬ 
tion. Nor does the scheme receive any better illustration 
from the fact, that whoever attempts the cure of misery must 
himself suffer; must have the shadows of ill cast upon his 
spirit from every sadness he alleviates; and interpose himself 
to stay the plague which, in a world diseased, threatens to 
pass to the living from the dead. The parallel fails, because 
there is still no transference: the appropriate sufferings of 
sin are not given to the philanthropist; and the noble pains 
of goodness in him, the glorious strife of his self-sacrifice, 
are no part of the penal consequences of others’ guilt; they 
do not cancel one iota of those consequences, or make the 
crimes which have demanded them, in any way, more ready 
for forgiveness. Indeed, it is not in the good man’s suffer¬ 
ings, considered as such, that any efficacy resides; but in 
his efforts, which may be made with great sacrifice or with¬ 
out it, as the case may be. Nor, at best, is there any proper 
annihilation of consequences at all accruing from his toils ; the 
past acts of wrong which call up his resisting energies are 
irrevocable, the guilt incurred, the penalty indestructible; 
the series of effects, foreign to the mind of the perpetrator, 
may be abbreviated; prevention applied to new ills which 
threaten to arise; but by all this the personal fitness of the 
delinquent for forgiveness is wholly unaffected; the volition 
of sin has gone forth, and on it flies, as surely as sound 
on a vibration of the air, the verdict of judgment. 

Those who are affected by slight and failing analogies 
like these, would do well to consider one, sufficiently obvious, 
which seems to throw doubt upon their scheme. The atone¬ 
ment is thought to be, in respect to all believers, a reversal 
of the fall; the effects of the fall are partly visible and 


96 


INCONSISTENCY OF THE 


temporal, partly invisible and eternal; linked, however, to¬ 
gether as inseparable portions of the same penal system. 
Now it is evident, that the supposed redemption on the cross 
has left precisely where they were all the visible effects of 
the first transgression: sorrow and toil are the lot of all, as 
they have been from of old; the baptized infant utters a cry 
as. sad as the unbaptized ; and between the holiness of the 
true believer and the worth of the devout heretic^there is 
not discernible such a difference as there must have been 
between Adam pure and perfect and Adam lapsed and lost. 
And is it presumptuous to reason from the seen to the unseen, 
from the part which we experience to that which we can only 
conceive ? If the known effects are unredeemed, the suspicion 
is not unnatural, that so are the unknown. 

I sum up, then, this part of my subject by observing, that, 
besides many inconclusive appeals to nature, the advocates of 
the vicarious scheme are chargeable with this fundamental 
inconsistency. They appear to deny that the justice and 
benevolence of God can be reconciled with the phenomena 
of nature; and say that the evidence must be helped out by 
resort to their interpretation of Scripture. When, having 
heard this auxiliary system, we protest that it renders the 
case sadder than before, they assure us that it is all benevo¬ 
lent and just, because it has its parallel in creation. They 
renounce and adopt, in the same breath, the religious appeal 
to the universe of God. 

(2.) Another inconsistency appears, in the view which this 
theory gives of the character of God. 

It is assumed that, at the era of creation, the Maker of 
mankind had announced the infinite penalties which must 
follow the violation of his law; and that their amount did 
not exceed the measure which his abhorrence of Wrong re¬ 
quired. “ And that which he saith, he would not be God if 
he did not perform: that which he perceived right, he would 
be unworthy of our trust, did he not fulfil. His veracity 
and justice, therefore, were pledged to adhere to the word that 
had gone forth ; and excluded the possibility of any free and 


SCHEME OF VICARIOUS REDEMPTION. 


97 


unconditional forgiveness.” Now I would note, in passing, 
that this announcement to Adam of an eternal punishment 
impending over his first sin, is simply a fiction; for the warn¬ 
ing to him is stated thus : “ In the day that thou eatest thereof, 
thou shalt surely die ” ; from which our progenitor must have 
been ingenious as a theologian, to extract the idea of endless 
life in hell. But to say no more of this, what notions of ve¬ 
racity have we here ? When a sentence is proclaimed against 
crime, is it indifferent to judicial truth upon whom it falls ? 
Personally addressed to the guilty, may it descend without a 
lie upon the guiltless ? Provided there is the suffering, is it 
no matter where ? Is this the sense in which God is no re¬ 
specter of persons ? 0 what deplorable reflection of human 

artifice is this, that Heaven is too veracious to abandon its 
proclamation of menace against transgressors, yet is content 
to vent it on goodness the most perfect! No darker deed can 
be imagined, than is thus ascribed to the Source of all perfec¬ 
tion, under the insulted names of truth and holiness. - What 
reliance could we have on the faithfulness of such a Being? 
If it be consistent with his nature to punish by substitution, 
what security is there that he will not reward vicariously ? 
All must be loose and unsettled, the sentiments of reverence 
confused, the perceptions of conscience indistinct, where the 
terms expressive of those great moral qualities which ren¬ 
der God himself most venerable are thus sported with and 
profaned. 

The same extraordinary departure from all intelligible 
meaning of words is apparent, when our charge of vindictive¬ 
ness against the doctrine of sacrifice is repelled as a slander. 
If the rigorous refusal of pardon till the whole penalty has 
been inflicted, (when, indeed, it is no pardon at all,) be not 
vindictive^ we may ask to be furnished with some better 
definition. And though it is said, that God’s love was mani¬ 
fested to us by the gift of his Son, this does but change the 
object on which this quality is exercised, without removing 
the quality itself; putting us indeed into the sunshine of his 
grace, but the Saviour into the tempest of his wrath. Did 
9 


98 


INCONSISTENCY OF THE 


we desire to sketch the most dreadful form of character, what 
more emphatic combination could we invent than this, — rigor 
in the exaction of penal suffering, and indifference as to the 
person on whom it falls ? 

But in truth this system, in its delineations of the Great 
Ruler of creation, bids defiance to all the analogies by which 
Christ and the Christian heart have delighted to illustrate 
his nature. A God who could accept the spontaneously re¬ 
turning sinner, and restore him by corrective discipline, is pro¬ 
nounced not worth serving, and an object of contempt.* If 
so, Jesus sketched an object of contempt when he drew the 
father of the prodigal son, opening his arms to the poor 
penitent, and needing only the sight of his misery to fall on 
his neck with the kiss of welcome home. Let the assertions 
be true, that sacrifice and satisfaction are needful preliminaries 
to pardon, that to pay any attention to repentance without 
these is mere weakness, and that it is a perilous deception to 
teach the doctrine of mercy apart from the atonement, and 
this parable of our Saviour’s becomes the most pernicious 


* u Either he ” (“ the Deity of the Unitarians ”) “ must show no mercy, 
in order to continue true ; or he must show no truth, in order to exercise 
mercy. If he overlook man’s guilt, admit him to the enjoyment of his favor , 
and proceed by corrective, discipline to restore his character, he unsettles the 
foundations of all equitable government, obliterates the everlasting distinc¬ 
tions between right and wrong, spreads consternation in heaven, and pro¬ 
claims impunity in hell. Such a God would not be worth serving. Such 
tenderness, instead of inspiring filial affection, would lead only to reckless 
contempt.” — Mr. M'Neile's Lecture , p. 313. 

Surely this is a description, not of the Unitarian, but of the Lecturer’s 
own creed. It certainly is no part of his opponents’ belief, that God 
first admits the guilty to his favor, and then “ proceeds'" “to restore his 
character.” This arrangement, by which pardon precedes moral restoration, 
is that feature in the Orthodox theory of the Divine dealings against which 
Unitarians protest, and which Mr. M‘Neile himself insists upon as essential 
throughout his Lecture. “ We think,” he says, “ that before man can be 
introduced to the only true process of improvement, he must first have for¬ 
giveness of his guilt.” What is this “ first ” step, of pardon, but an “ over¬ 
looking of man’s guilt ” ; and what is the second, of “ sanctification,” but a 
“ restoring of character ” ; whether we say by “ corrective discipline,” or 
the “ influence of the Holy Spirit,” matters not. Is it said that the guilt is 
not overlooked, if Christ endured its penalty ? I ask, again, whether justice 



SCHEME OF VICARIOUS REDEMPTION. 


99 


instrument of delusion, — a statement, absolute and unqualified, 
of a feeble and sentimental heresy. Who does not see what 
follows from this scornful exclusion of corrective punishment? 
Suppose the infliction not to be corrective, that is, not to be 
designed for any good, what then remains as the cause of the 
Divine retribution ? The sense of insult offered to a law. 
And thus we are virtually told, that God must be regarded 
with a mixture of contempt, unless he be susceptible of per¬ 
sonal affront. 

(3.) The last inconsistency with itself, which I shall point 
out in this doctrine, will be found in the view which it gives 
of the work of Christ. Sin, we are assured, is necessarily 
infinite. Its infinitude arises from its reference to an Infinite 
Being, and involves as a consequence the necessity of re¬ 
demption by Deity himself. 

The position, that guilt is to be estimated, not by its 
amount or its motive, but by the dignity of the being against 
whom it is directed, is illustrated by the case of an insubor¬ 
dinate soldier, whose punishment is increased according as 

regards only the infliction of suffering, or its quantity , without caring about 
its direction ? Was it impossible for the stern righteousness of God freely to 
forgive the penitent ? And how was the injustice of liberating the guilty 
mended by the torments of the innocent ? Here is the verdict against sin : 
“The soul that sinneth, it shall die.” And how is this verdict executed? 
The soul that had sinned does not die ; and one “ that knew no sin ” dies 
instead. And this is called a divine union of truth and mercy; being the 
most precise negation of both, of which any conception can be formed. 
First, to hang the destinies of all mankind upon a solitary volition of their 
first parents, and then let loose a diabolic power on that volition to break it 
down ; to vitiate the human constitution in punishment for the fall, and yet 
continue to demand obedience to the original and perfect moral law ; to 
assert the absolute inflexibility of that holy law, yet all the while have in 
view for the offenders a method of escape, which violates every one of its 
provisions, and makes it all a solemn pretence ; to forgive that which is in 
itself unpardonable, on condition of the suicide of a God, is to shock and 
confound all notions of rectitude, without affording even the sublimity of a 
savage grandeur. This will be called “blasphemy”; and it is so; but the 
blasphemy is not in the words , but in the thing. 

Unitarians*are falsely accused of representing God as “ overlooking man’s 
guilt.” They hold, that no guilt is overlooked till it is eradicated from the 
soul; and that pardon proceeds pari passu with sanctification. 



100 


INCONSISTENCY OF THE 


liis rebellion assails an equal or any of the many grades 
amongst his superiors. It is evident, however, that it is not 
the dignity of the person, but the magnitude of the effect, 
which determines the severity of the sanction by which, in 
such an instance, law enforces order. Insult to a monarch is 
more sternly treated than injury to a subject, because it in¬ 
curs the risk of wider and more disastrous consequences, and 
superadds to the personal injury a peril to an official power 
which, not resting on individual superiority, but on conven¬ 
tional arrangement, is always precarious. It is not indeed 
easy to form a distinct notion of an infinite act in a finite 
agent; and still less is it easy to evade the inference, that, if 
an immoral deed against? God be an infinite demerit, a moral 
deed towards him must be an infinite merit. 

Passing by an assertion so unmeaning, and conceding it 
for the sake of progress in our argument, I would inquire 
what is intended by that other statement, that only Deity 
can redeem, and that by Deity the sacrifice was made ? The 
union of the divine and human natures in Christ is said to 
have made his sufferings meritorious in an infinite degree. 
Yet we are repeatedly assured, that it was in his manhood 
only that he endured and died. If the divine nature in our 
Lord had a joint consciousness with the human, then did 
God suffer and perish; if not, then did the man only die, 
Deity being no more affected by his anguish, than by 
that of the malefactors on either side. In the one case the 
perfections of God, in the other the reality of the atonement, 
must be relinquished. No doubt, the popular belief is, that 
the Creator literally expired; the hymns in common use de¬ 
clare it; the language of pulpits sanctions it; the consistency 
of creeds requires it; but professed theologians repudiate the 
idea with indignation. Yet by silence or ambiguous speech, 
they encourage, in those whom they are bound to enlighten, 
this degrading‘humanization of Deity; which renders it im¬ 
possible for common minds to avoid ascribing to him emo¬ 
tions and infirmities totally irreconcilable with the serene 
perfections of the Universal Mind. In his influence on the 


SCHEME OF VICARIOUS REDEMPTION. 


101 


worshipper, He is no Spirit, who can be invoked by his agony 
and bloody sweat, his cross and passion. And the piety 
that is thus taught to bring its incense, however sincere, be¬ 
fore the mental image of a being with convulsed features and 
expiring cry, has little left of that which makes Christian 
devotion characteristically venerable. 

II. I proceed to notice the inconsistency of the doctrine 
under review with the Christian idea of salvation. 

There is one significant Scriptural fact , which suggests to 
us the best mode of treating this part of our subject. It is 
this: that the language supposed to teach the atoning efficacy 
of the cross does not appear in the New Testament till the 
Gentile controversy commences, nor ever occurs apart from 
the treatment of that subject, under some of its relations. 
The cause of this phenomenon will presently appear; mean¬ 
while I state it, in the place of an assertion sometimes incor¬ 
rectly made, viz. that the phraseology in question is confined 
to the Epistles. Even this mechanical limitation of sacrificial 
passages is indeed nearly true, as not above three or four have 
strayed beyond the epistolary boundary into the Gospels and 
the book of Acts; but the restriction in respect of subject, 
which I have stated, will be found, I believe, to be absolutely 
exact, and to furnish the real interpretation to the whole 
system of language. 

(1.) Let us then first test the vicarious scheme by refer*' 
ence to the sentiments of Scripture generally, and of our Lord 
and his Apostles especially, where this controversy is out of 
the way. Are their ideas respecting human character, the 
forgiveness of sin, the terms of everlasting life, accordant 
with the cardinal notions of a believer in the atonement? 
Do they, or do they not, insist on the necessity of a sacri¬ 
fice for human sin, as a preliminary to pardon, to sanctifi¬ 
cation, to the love of God? Do they, or do they not, 
direct a marked and almost exclusive attention to the 
cross, as the object to which, far more than to the life and 
resurrection of our Lord, all faithful eyes should be di¬ 
rected ? 

9 * 


102 


INCONSISTENCY OF THE 


(a.) Now to the fundamental assertion of the vicarious 
system, that the Deity cannot, without inconsistency and im¬ 
perfection, pardon on simple repentance, the whole tenor of 
the Bible is one protracted and unequivocal contradiction. 
So copious is its testimony on this head, that if the passages 
containing it were removed, scarcely a shred of Scripture re¬ 
lating to the subject would remain. “ Pardon, I beseech 
thee,” said Moses, pleading for the Israelites, “ the iniquity 
of this people, according to the greatness of thy mercy, and 
as thou hast forgiven this people from Egypt even until 
now. And the Lord said, I have 'pardoned according to thy 
wordy Will it be affirmed, that this chosen people had their 
eyes perpetually fixed in faith on the great propitiation, which 
was to close their dispensation, and of which their own cere¬ 
monial was a type ? — that whenever penitence and pardon 
are named amongst them, this reference is implied, and that 
as this faith was called to mind and expressed in the shedding 
of blood at the altar, such sacrificial offerings take the place, 
in Judaism, of the atoning trust in Christianity? Well, then, 
let us quit the chosen nation altogether, and go to a heathen 
people, who were aliens to their laws, their blood, their hopes, 
and their religion; to whom no sacrifice was appointed, and 
no Messiah promised. If we can discover the dealings of 
God with such a people, the case, I presume, must be deemed 
conclusive. Hear, then, what happened on the banks of the 
Tigris. “Jonah began to enter into the city,” (Nineveh,) 
“ and he cried and said, yet forty days and Nineveh shall be 
overthrown. So the people of Nineveh believed God, and 
proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of 
them even unto the least of them.” “ Who can tell,” (said 
the decree of the king ordaining the fast,) “ if God will turn 
and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we 
perish not? And God saw their works, that they turned 
from their evil way; and God repented of the evil that he 
had said he would do unto them; and he did it not.” And 
when the prophet was offended, first at this clemency to 
Nineveh, and afterwards that the canker was sent to destroy 


SCHEME OF VICARIOUS REDEMPTION. 


103 


his own favorite plant, beneath whose shadow he sat, what 
did Jehovah say ? “ Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for 

which thou hast not labored, neither madest it grow ; which 
came up in a night and perished in a night; and should not 
I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than six- 
score thousand persons that cannot discern between their 
right hand and their left hand ? ” — and who are not likely, 
one would think, to have discerned the future merits of the 
Redeemer. 

In truth, if even the Israelites had any such prospective 
views to Calvary, if their sacrifices conveyed the idea of the 
cross erected there, and were established for this purpose, the 
fact must have been privately revealed to modern theologians ; 
for not a trace of it can be found in the Hebrew writings. It 
must be thought strange, that a prophetic reference so habit¬ 
ual should be always a secret reference; that a faith so fun¬ 
damental should be so mysteriously suppressed; that the 
uppermost idea of a nation’s mind should never have found 
its way to lips or pen. “ But if it were not so,” we are re¬ 
minded, “if the Jewish ritual prefigured nothing ulterior, it 
was revolting, trifling, savage ; its worship a butchery, and 
the temple courts no better than a slaughter-house.” And 
were they not equally so, though the theory of types be true ? 
If neither priest nor people could see at the time the very 
thins: which the ceremonial was constructed to reveal, what 
advantage is it that divines can see it now ? And even if the 
notion was conveyed to the Jewish mind, (which the whole 
history shows not to have been the fact,) was it necessary 
that hecatombs should be slain, age after age, to intimate 
obscurely an idea, which one brief sentence might have lucidly 
expressed ? The idea, however, it is evident, slipped through 
after all; for when Messiah actually came, the one great 
thing which the Jews did not know and believe about him 
was, that he could die at all. So much for the preparatory 
discipline of fifteen centuries! 

There is no reason, then, why anything should be supplied 
in our thoughts, to alter the plain meaning of the announce- 


104 


INCONSISTENCY OF THE 


ments of prophets and holy men, of God’s unconditional for¬ 
giveness on repentance. “ Thou desirest not sacrifice, else 
would I give it; thou delightest not in burnt-offering; the 
sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a con¬ 
trite heart, 0 God, thou wilt not despise.” “ Wash you, 
make you clean,” says the prophet Isaiah in the name of the 
Lord; “ put away the evil of your doings from before mine 
eyes, cease to do evil, learn to do well; seek judgment, re¬ 
lieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow. 
Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord; though 
your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though 
they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” Once 
more, “ When I say unto the wicked, thou slialt surely die; 
if he turn from his sin, and do that which is lawful and right; 
if the wicked restore the pledge, give again that he hath 
robbed, walk in the statutes of life without committing in¬ 
iquity ; he shall surely live, he shall not die.” Nor are the 
teachings of the Gospel at all less explicit. Our Lord treats 
largely and expressly on tlfe doctrine of forgiveness in several 
parables, and especially that of the prodigal son; and omits 
all allusion to the propitiation for the past. He furnishes # an 
express definition of the terms of eternal life: “ Good master, 
what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life? 
And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good ? there is 
none good save one, that is God; but if thou wilt enter into 
life, keep the commandments.” And Jesus adds, “If thou 
wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the 
poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven; and come, 
follow me.” This silence on the prime condition of pardon 
cannot be explained by the fact, that the crucifixion had not 
yet taken place, and could not safely be alluded-to, before the 
course of events had brought it into prominent notice. For 
we have the preaching of the Apostles, after the ascension, 
recorded at great length, and under very various circum¬ 
stances, in the book of Acts. We have the very “words 
whereby,” according to the testimony of an angel, “ Cornelius 
and all his house shall be saved ”; these, one would think, 


SCHEME OF VICARIOUS REDEMPTION. 


105 


would be worth hearing in this cause : u God anointed Jesus 
of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost, and with power; who went 
about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the 
Devil, for God was with him. And we are witnesses of all 
things which he did, both in the land of the Jews and in 
Jerusalem; whom they slew and hanged on a tree. Him God 
raised up the third day, and showed openly; not to all the 
people, but unto witnesses chosen before of God, even to us, 
who did eat and drink with him after he rose from the dead. 
And he commanded us to preach unto the people, and to 
testify that it is he who was ordained of God to be the judge 
of quick and dead. To him give all the prophets witness, 
that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall 
receive remission of sins.” Did an Evangelical missionary 
dare to preach in this style now, he would be immediately 
disowned by his employers, and dismissed as a disguised 
Socinian, who kept back all the “ peculiar doctrines of the 
Gospel.” 

(b.) The emphatic mention of the resurrection by the 
Apostle Peter in this address, is only a particular instance 
of a system which pervades the whole preaching of the first 
missionaries of Christ. This, and not the cross, with its sup¬ 
posed effects, is the grand object to which they call the atten¬ 
tion and the faith of their hearers. I cannot quote to you 
the whole book of Acts ; but every reader knows, that “ Jesus 
and the resurrection ” constitutes the leading theme, the cen¬ 
tral combination of ideas in all its discourses. This truth 
was shed, from Peter’s tongue of fire, on the multitudes that 
heard amazed the inspiration of the day of Pentecost. Again, 
it was his text, when, passing beneath the beautiful gate, he 
made the cripple leap for joy; and then, with the flush of 
this deed still fresh upon him, leaned against a pillar in Solo¬ 
mon’s porch, and spake in explanation to the awe-struck 
people, thronging in at the hour of prayer. Before priests 
and rulers, before Sanhedrim and populace, the same tale is 
told a^ain, to the utter exclusion, be it observed, of the 
essential doctrine of the cross. The authorities of the temple, 


106 


INCONSISTENCY OF THE 


we are told, were galled and terrified at the Apostle’s preach¬ 
ing ; “ naturally enough,” it will be, said, “ since, the real 
sacrifice having been offered, their vocation, which was to 
make the prefatory and typical oblation, was threatened with 
destruction.” But no, this is not the reason given: “ They 
were grieved because they preached, through Jesus, the resur¬ 
rection from the dead.” Paul, too, while his preaching was 
spontaneous and free, and until he had to argue certain con¬ 
troversies which have long ago become obsolete, manifested a 
no less remarkable predilection for this topic. Before Felix, 
he declares what was the grand indictment of his countrymen 
against him: “ Touching the resurrection of the dead, I am 
called in question of you this day.” Follow him far away 
from his own land; and, with foreigners, he harps upon the 
same subject, as if he were a man of one idea; which, in¬ 
deed, according to our opponents’ scheme, he ought to have 
been, only it should have been another idea. Seldom, how¬ 
ever, can we meet with a more exuberant mind than Paul’s ; 
yet the resurrection obviously haunts him wherever he goes: 
in the synagogue of Antioch you hear him dwelling on it with 
all the energy of his inspiration ; and, at Athens, it was this 
on which the scepticism of Epicureans and Stoics fastened for 
a scoff. In his Epistles, too, where he enlarges so much on 
justification by faith, when we inquire what precisely is this 
faith, and what the object it is to contemplate and embrace, 
this remarkable fact presents itself: that the one only im¬ 
portant thing respecting Christ, which is never once mentioned 
as the object of justifying faith, is his death, and blood, and 
cross. “ Faith ” by itself, the “ faith of Jesus Christ,” “ faith 
of the Gospel,” “ faith of the Son of God,” are expressions 
of constant occurrence; and wherever this general description 
is replaced by a more specific account of this justifying state 
of mind, it is faith in the resurrection on which attention is 
fastened. “ It is Christ that died, yea, rather, that is risen 
again” “ He was delivered for our offences, and raised again 
for our justification .” “ Faith shall be imputed to us for 

righteousness, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our 


SCHEME OF VICARIOUS REDEMPTION. 


107 


Lord from, the dead.” Hear, too, the Apostle’s definition of 
saving faith : If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord 
Jesus, and shalt believe in thy heart that God hath raised him 
from the dead , thou shalt be saved.” The only instance in 
which the writings of St. Paul appear to associate the word 
faith with the death of Christ, is the following text: “ Whom 
God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his 
blood ” ; and in this case the Apostle’s meaning would, I con¬ 
ceive, be more faithfully given by destroying this conjunction, 
and disposing the words thus : “ Whom God hath set forth to 
be a propitiation by his blood, through faith.” The idea of his 
blood, or death, belongs to the word propitiation, not to the word 
faith. To this translation no Trinitarian scholar, I am per¬ 
suaded, can object; * and when the true meaning of the writer’s 
sacrificial language is explained, the distinction will appear to 
be not unimportant. At present I am concerned only with 
the defence of my position, that the death of Christ is never 
mentioned as the object of saving faith; but that his resur¬ 
rection unquestionably is. This phenomenon in Scripture 
phraseology is so extraordinary, so utterly repugnant to every¬ 
thing which a hearer of orthodox preaching would expect, 
that I hardly expect my affirmation of it to be believed. The 
two ideas of faith, and of our Lord's death, are so naturally 
and perpetually united in the mind of every believer in the 
atonement, that it must appear to him incredible that they 
should never fall together in the writings of the Apostles. 
However, I have stated my fact; and it is for you to bring it 
to the test of Scripture. 

(c.) Independently of all written testimony, moral reasons, 
we are assured, exist, which render an absolute remission for 
the past essential to a regenerated life for the future. Our 
human nature is said to be so constituted, that the burden 


* Mr. Buddicom has the following note, intimating his approbation of this 
rendering : “ Some of the best commentators have connected tv tco aurov 
aifxarc , not with 8ta tt)s 7 riarecos, but with i\ao-Tr]pt.ov • and, accordingly, 
Bishop Bull renders the passage, ‘ Quern proposuit Deus placamentum in 
sanguine suo per fidem.’ ” —Lecture on Atonement, p. 496. 



108 


INCONSISTENCY OF THE 


of sin, on the conscience once awakened, is intolerable; our 
spirit cries aloud for mercy; yet is so straitened by the bands 
of sin, so conscious of the sad alliance lingering still, so full 
of hesitancy and shame when seeking the relief of prayer, so 
blinded by its tears when scanning the heavens for an opening 
of light and hope, that there is no freedom, no unrestrained 
and happy love to God; but a pinched and anxious mind, 
bereft of power, striving to work with bandaged or paralytic 
will, instead of trusting itself to loosened and self-oblivious 
affections. Hence it is thought, that the sin of the past must 
be cancelled, before the holiness of the future can be com¬ 
menced ; that it is a false order to represent repentance as 
leading to pardon, because to be forgiven is the prerequisite 
to love. We cannot forget, however, how distinctly and 
emphatically he who, after God, best knew what is in 
man, has contradicted this sentiment; for when that sinful 
woman, whose presence in the house shocked the sanctimo¬ 
nious Pharisee, stood at his feet as he reclined, washing 
them with her tears, and kissing them with reverential 
lips, Jesus turned to her and said, “ Her sins, which are 
many, are forgiven ; for she loved much.” From him, then, 
we learn, what our own hearts would almost teach, that love 
may be the prelude to forgiveness, as well as forgiveness the 
preparative for love. 

At the same time let me acknowledge, that this statement 
respecting the moral effects of conscious pardon, to which I 
have invoked Jesus to reply, is by no means an unmixed 
error. It touches upon a very profound and important truth ; 
and I can never bring myself to regard that assurance of 
Divine forgiveness, which the doctrine of atonement imparts, 
as a demoralizing state of mind, encouraging laxity of con¬ 
science and a continuance in sin. The sense of pardon, doubt¬ 
less, reaches the secret springs of gratitude, presents the soul 
with an object, strange before, of new and divine affection, 
and binds the child of redemption, by all generous and filial 
obligations, to serve with free and willing heart the God who 
hath gone forth to meet him. That the motives of self- 


SCHEME OF VICARIOUS REDEMPTION. 


109' 


interest are diminished in such a case, is a trifle that need 
occasion small anxiety. For the human heart is no laborer 
for hire; and, where there is opportunity afforded for true 
and noble love, will thrust away the proffered wages, and toil 
rather in a free and thankful spirit. If- we are to compare, 
as a source of duty, the grateful with the merely prudential 
temper, rather may we trust the first, as not the worthier 
only, but the stronger too; and till we obtain emancipation 
from the latter, — forget the computations of hope and fear, 
and precipitate ourselves for better or for w r orse on some object 
of divine love and trust, — our nature will be puny and weak, 
our wills will turn in sickness from their duty, and our affec¬ 
tions shrink in aversion from their heaven. But though per¬ 
sonal gratitude is better than prudence, there is a higher 
service still. A more disinterested love may spring from the 
contemplation of what God is in himself, than from the rec¬ 
ollection of what he has done for us; and when this mingles 
most largely as an element among our springs of action; 
when, humbled indeed by a knowledge of dangers that await 
us, and thankful, too, for the blessings spread around us, we 
yet desire chiefly to be fitting children of the everlasting 
Father and the holy God; when we venerate him for the 
graciousness, and purity, and majesty of his spirit, imper¬ 
sonated in Jesus, and resolve to serve him truly, before he 
has granted the desire of our heart, and because he is of a 
nature so sublime and merciful and good ; — then are we in 
the condition of her who bent over the feet of Christ; and 
we are forgiven, because we have loved much. 

(2.) Let us now, in conclusion, turn our attention to those 
portions of the New Testament which speak of the death of 
Christ as the means of redemption. 

I have said, that these are to be found exclusively in pas¬ 
sages of the sacred writings which treat of the Gentile con¬ 
troversy, or of topics immediately connected with it. This 
controversy arose naturally out of the design -of Providence 
to make the narrow, exclusive, ceremonial system of Judaism 
give birth to the universal and spiritual religion of the Gos- 
10 


110 


INCONSISTENCY OF THE 


pel; from God’s method of expanding the Hebrew Messiah 
into the Saviour of humanity. For this the nation was not 
prepared; to this even the Hebrew Christians could not easily 
conform their faith; and in the achievement of this, or in 
persuading the world that it was achieved, did Paul spend his 
noble life, and write his astonishing Epistles. The Jews knew 
that the Deliverer was to be of their peculiar stock, and their 
royal lineage ; they believed that he would gather upon him¬ 
self all the singularities of their race, and be a Hebrew to 
intensity; that he would literally restore the kingdom to 
Israel; ay, and extend it too, immeasurably • beyond the 
bounds of its former greatness; till, in fact, it swallowed up 
all existing principalities, and powers, and thrones, and do¬ 
minions, and became coextensive with the earth. Then in 
Jerusalem, as the centre of the vanquished nations, before 
the temple, as the altar of a humbled world, did they expect 
the Messiah to erect his throne; and when he had taken the 
seat of judgment, to summon all the tribes before his tribunal, 
and pass on the Gentiles, excepting the few who might submit 
to the law, a sentence of perpetual exclusion from his realm; 
while his own people would be invited to the seats of honor, 
occupy the place of authority, and sit down with him (the 
greatest at his right hand and his left) at his table in his 
kingdom. The holy men of old were to come on earth again 
to see this day. And many thought that every part of the 
realm thus constituted, and all its inhabitants, would never 
die; but, like the Messiah himself, and the patriarchs whom 
he was to call to life, would be invested with immortality. 
None were to be admitted to these golden days except them¬ 
selves ; all else to be left in outer darkness from this region 
of light, and there to perish and be seen no more. The grand 
title to admission was conformity with the Mosaic law; the 
most ritually scrupulous were the most secure ; and the care¬ 
less Israelite, who forgot or omitted an offering, a tithe, a 
Sabbath duty,-might incur the penalty of exclusion and death: 
the law prescribed such mortal punishment for the smallest 
offence; and no one, therefore, could feel himself ready with 


SCHEME OF VICARIOUS REDEMPTION. 


Ill 


his claim, if he had not yielded a perfect obedience. If God 
were to admit him on any other plea, it would be of pure 
grace and goodness, and not in fulfilment of any promise. 

The Jews, being scattered over the civilized world, and 
having synagogues in every city, came into perpetual contact 
with other people. Nor was it possible that the Gentiles, 
among whom they lived, should notice the singular purity 
and simplicity of the Israelitish Theism, without some of them 
being struck with its spirit, attracted by its sublime prin¬ 
ciples, and disposed to place themselves in religious relations 
with that singular people. Having been led into admiration, 
and even profession, of the nation’s theology, they could not 
but desire to share their hopes ; which indeed were an in¬ 
tegral part of their religion, and, at the Christian era, the one 
element in it to which they were most passionately attached. 
But this was a stretch of charity too great for any Hebrew; 
or, at all events, if such admission were ever to be thought 
of, it must be only on condition of absolute submission to 
the requirements of the law. The Gentile would naturally 
plead, that, as God had not made him of the chosen nation, 
he had given him no law, except that of conscience; that, 
being without the law, he must be a law unto himself; and 
that, if he had lived according to his light, he could not be 
justly excluded on the ground of accidental disqualification. 
Possibly, in the provocation of dispute, the Gentile might 
sometimes become froward and insolent in his assertion of 
claim; and, in the pride of his heart, demand as a right that 
which, at most, could only be humbly hoped for as a priv¬ 
ilege and a free gift. 

Thus were the parties mutually placed to whom the Deliv¬ 
erer came. Thus dense and complicated was the web of 
prejudice which clung round the early steps of the Gospel; 
and which must be burst or disentangled ere the glad tidings 
could have free course and be glorified. How did Providence 
develop from such elements the divine and everlasting truth ? 
Not by neglecting them, and speaking to mankind as if they 
had no such ideas; not by forbidding his messengers and 


112 


INCONSISTENCY OF THE 


teachers to have any patience with them; but, on the con¬ 
trary, by using these very notions as temporary means to his 
everlasting ends ; by touching this and that with light before 
the eyes of Apostles, as if to say, there are good capabilities 
in these ; the truth may be educed from them so gently and 
so wisely, that the world will find itself in light, without per¬ 
ceiving how it has been quitting the darkness. 

So long as Christ remained on earth, he necessarify con¬ 
fined his ministry to his nation. He would not have been 
the Messiah had he done otherwise. By birth, by lineage, 
by locality, by habit, he was altogether theirs. Whoever, 
then, of his own people, during his mortal life, believed in 
him and followed him, became a subject of the Messiah; 
ready, it was supposed, even by the Apostles themselves, to 
enter the glory of his kingdom, whenever it should please 
him to assume it; qualified at once, by the combination of 
pedigree and of belief, to enter into life, to become a mem¬ 
ber of the kingdom of God, to take a place among the elect; 
for by all these phrases was described the admission to the 
expected realm. If, then, Jesus had never suffered and 
died, if he had never retired from this world, but stayed to 
fulfil the anticipations of his first followers, his Messianic 
kingdom might have included all the converts of the Israelitish 
stock. From the exclusion which fell on others, they would 
have obtained salvation. Hence, it is never in connection 
with the first Jewish Christians that the death of Christ is 
mentioned. 

It was otherwise, however, with the Gentiles. They could 
not become his followers in his mortal lifetime; and had a 
Messianic reign then been set up, they must have been ex¬ 
cluded ; no missionary would have been justified in addressing 
them with invitation ; they could not, as it was said, have 
entered into life. The Messiah must cease to be Jewish, 
before he could become universal; and this implied his death, 
by which alone the personal relations, which made him the 
property of a nation, could be annihilated. To this lie sub¬ 
mitted ; he disrobed himself of his corporeality, he became 


SCHEME OF VICARIOUS REDEMPTION. 


113 


an immortal spirit; thereby instantly burst his religion open 
to the dimensions of the world; and, as he ascended to the 
skies, sent it forth to scatter the seeds of blessing over the 
field of the world, long ploughed with cares, and moist with 
griefs, and softened now to nourish in its bosom the tree of 
Life. 

Now, how would the effect of this great revolution be de¬ 
scribed to the proselyte Gentiles, so long vainly praying for 
admission to the Israelitish hope. At once it destroyed their 
exclusion; put away as valueless the Jewish claims of cir¬ 
cumcision and law ; nailed the handwriting of ordinances to 
the cross ; reconciled them that had been afar off; redeemed 
them to God by his blood, out of every tongue, and kindred, 
and people, and nation ; washed them in his blood; justified 
them by his resurrection and ascension; an expression, I 
would remark, unmeaning on any other explanation. 

Even during our Lord’s personal ministry his approach¬ 
ing death is mentioned as the means of introducing the Gen- 
tiles into his Messianic kingdom. He adverts repeatedly to 
his cross, as designed to widen, by their admission, the ex¬ 
tent of his sway;. and, according to Scripture phrase, to yield 
to him “ much fruit.” He was already on his last fatal visit 
to Jerusalem, when, taking the hint from the visit of some 
Greeks to him , he exclaimed: “ The hour is come, that the 
Son of man should be glorified. Verily, verily, I say unto 
you, except a grain of wheat fall into the ground and die, it 
abideth alone: but if it die , it bringeth forth much fruit” 
He adds, in allusion to the death he should die: “ And I, if 
I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.” 
It is for this end that he resigns for a while his life, — that he 
may bring in the wanderers who are not of the common¬ 
wealth of Israel: “ Other sheep I have, which are not of 
this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my 
voice; and there shall be one fold and one shepherd: there¬ 
fore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life , that 
I may take it again.” Many a parable did Jesus utter, pro¬ 
claiming his Father’s intended mercy to the uncovenanted 
10 * 


114 


INCONSISTENCY OF THE 


nations : but for himself personally he declared, “ I am not 
sent, but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” His 
advent was a promise of their economy; his office, the tra¬ 
ditionary hope of their fathers ; his birth, his life, his person, 
were under the Law, and excluded him from relations to 
those who were beyond its obligations. On the cross, all the 
connate peculiarities of the Nazarene ceased to exist: when 
the seal of the sepulchre gave way, the seal of the law was 
broken too; the nationality of his person passed away; for 
how can an immortal be a Jew? This, then, was the time to 
open wide the scope of his mission, and to invite to God’s 
acceptance those that fear him in every nation. Though, be¬ 
fore, the disciple might “ have known Christ after the flesh,” 
and followed his steps as the Hebrew Messiah, “ yet now 
henceforth "was he to know him so no more ” ; these u old 
things had passed away,” since he had “ died for all,” — died 
to become universal, — to drop all exclusive relations, and 
u reconcile the world,” the Gentile world, to God. Observe 
to whom this “ministry of reconciliation” is especially con¬ 
fided. As if to show that it is exclusively the risen Christ 
who belongs to all men, and that his death was the instrument 
of the Gentiles’ admission, their great Apostle was one Paul, 
who had not known the Saviour in his mortal life; who never 
listened to his voice till it spake from heaven; who himself 
was the convert of his ascension; and bore to him the rela¬ 
tion, not of subject to the person of a Hebrew king, but of 
spirit to spirit, unembarrassed by anything earthly, legal, or 
historical. Well did Paul understand the freedom and the 
sanctity of this relation; and around the idea of the Heavenly 
Messiah gathered all his conceptions of the spirituality of the 
Gospel, of its power over the unconscious affections, rather 
than a reluctant will. His believing countrymen were afraid 
to disregard the observances of the law, lest it should be a 
disloyalty to God, and disqualify them for the Messiah’s 
welcome, when he came to take his power and reign. Paul 
tells them, that, while their Lord remained in this mortal 
state, they were right; as representative of the law, and filling 


SCHEME OF VICARIOUS REDEMPTION. 


115 


an office created by the religion of Judaism, he could not-but 
have held them then to its obligations ; nor could they, without 
infidelity, have neglected its claims, any more than a wife can 
innocently separate herself from a living husband. But as 
the death of the man sets the woman free, and makes null the 
law of their union, so the decease of Christ’s body emanci¬ 
pates his followers from all legal relations to him; and they 
are at liberty to wed themselves anew to the risen Christ, 
who dwells where no ordinance is needful, no tie permitted 
but of the spirit, and all are as the angels of God. Surely, 
then, this mode of conception explains why the death of Jesus 
constitutes a great date in the Christian economy, especially 
as expounded by the friend and Apostle of those who were 
not “ Jews by nature, but sinners of the Gentiles.” Had he 
never died, they must have remained aliens from his sway; 
the enemies against whom his power must be directed; with¬ 
out hope in the day of his might; strangers to God and his 
vicegerent. 

But, while thus they “ were yet without strength, Christ 
died for” these “ungodly”; died to put himself into con¬ 
nection with them, else impossible ; and, rising from death, 
drew them after him into spiritual existence on earth, analo¬ 
gous to that which he passed in heaven. “ You,” says, their 
Apostle, “being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision 
of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him ” ; giving 
you, as “ risen with him,” a life above the world and its law 
of exclusion, — a life not “subject to ordinances,” but of 
secret love and heavenly faith, “hid with Christ in God”; 
“ blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against 
us, which was contrary to us, and taking it out of the way, 
nailing it to his cross.” God had never intended to per¬ 
petuate the division between Israel and the world, receiving 
the one as the sons, and shutting out the other as the slaves 
of his household. If there had been an appearance of such 
partiality, he had always designed to set these bondmen free, 
and to make them “heirs of God through Christ”; “in 
whom they had redemption through his blood” from their 


116 


INCONSISTENCY OF THE 


servile state, the forgiveness of disqualifying sins, according 
to the riches of his grace. Though the Hebrews boasted 
that “ theirs was the adoption,” and till Messiah’s death 
had boasted truly; yet in that event God, “ before the foun¬ 
dation of the world,” had “ blessed us ” (Gentiles) “ with all 
spiritual blessings in heavenly places ”; “ having predesti¬ 
nated us unto the adoption of children, by Jesus Christ, ac¬ 
cording ” (not indeed to any right or promise, but) “ to the 
good pleasure of his will,” “ and when we were enemies, 
having reconciled us, by the death of his Son ” ; “ that in the 
fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in 
Christ” ; “by whom wo ” (Gentiles) “ have now received this 
atonement ” (reconciliation) ; that he might have no partial 
empire, but that “ in him might all fulness dwell.” “ Where¬ 
fore,” says their Apostle, “ remember that ye, Gentiles in the 
flesh , were in time past without Messiah, being aliens from 
the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenant 
of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world; 
but now in Christ Jesus, ye, who sometime were afar off, are 
made nigh by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who 
hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall 
of partition between us ” (not between God and man, but 
between Jew and Gentile) ; “ having abolished in his flesh 
the enmity, even the law of commandments, contained in or¬ 
dinances ; for to make in himself, of twain, one new man, so 
making peace ; and that he might reconcile both unto God, in 
one body, by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby; and 
came and preached peace to you who were afar off, as well 
as to them that were nigh. For through him we both have 
an access by one spirit unto the Father.” 

The way, then, is clear and intelligible, in which the death 
and ascension of the Messiah rendered him universal, by 
giving spirituality to his rule; and, on the simple condition of 
faith, added the uncovenanted nations to his dominion, so far 
as they were willing to receive him. This idea, and this only, 
will be found in almost every passage of the New Testa¬ 
ment (excepting the Epistle to the Hebrews) usually adduced 


SCHEME OF VICARIOUS REDEMPTION. 


117 


to prove the doctrine of the Atonement. Some of the 
strongest of these I have already quoted; and my readers 
must judge whether they have received a satisfactory mean¬ 
ing. There are others, in which the Gentiles are not so dis¬ 
tinctly stated to be the sole objects of the redemption of the 
cross ; but with scarcely an exception, so far as I can discover, 
this limitation is implied, and either creeps out through some 
adjacent expression in the context, or betrays itself, when we 
recur to the general course of the Apostle’s argument, or to 
the character and circumstances of his correspondents. Thus 
Paul says, that Christ “ gave himself a ransom for all, to be 
testified in due time ” ; the next verse shows what is in his 
mind, when he adds, “ whereunto I am ordained a preacher, 
and an Apostle, a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and 
verity ” ; and the whole sentiment of the context is the Uni¬ 
versality of the Gospel , and the duty of praying for Gentile 
kings and people, as not abandoned to a foreign God and 
another Mediator ; for since Messiah’s death, to us all “ there 
is but One God, and One Mediator between God and men, 
the man Christ Jesus ” : wherefore the Apostle wills, that for 
all “ men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands, without 
wrath and doubting,” — without wrath at their admission, or 
doubt of ttieir adoption. And wherever emphasis is laid on 
the vast number benefited by the cross, a contrast is implied 
with the few (only the Jews) who could have been his sub¬ 
jects had he not died: and when it is said, “ he gave his life 
a ransom for many ” ; his blood was “ shed for many , for the 
remission of sins ”; “ thou wast slain, and hast redeemed 
us by thy blood, out of every kindred , and tongue , and people , 
and nation , and hast made us unto our God kings and 
priests, and we shall reign on the earth ”; “ behold the 
Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world ” ; * — 


* John i. 29. For an example of the use of the word “ world ” to denote 
the Gentiles, see Rom. xi. 12 - 15; where St. Paul, speaking of the rejection 
of the Messiah by the Jews, declares that it is only temporary; and as it has 
given occasion for the adoption of the Gentiles, so will this lead, by ultimate 
reaction, to the readmission of Israel; a consummation in which the Gentiles 



118 


INCONSISTENCY OF THE 


by all these expressions is still denoted the efficacy of Christ’s 
death in removing the Gentile disqualification, and making 
his dispensation spiritual as his celestial existence, and uni¬ 
versal as the Fatherhood of God. Does Paul exhort certain 
of his disciples “ to feed the church of the Lord, which he 
hath purchased with his own blood”?* We find that he is 
speaking of the Gentile church of Ephesus, whose elders he 
is instructing in the management of their charge, and to 
which he afterwards wrote the well-known Epistle, on their 
Gentile freedom and adoption obtained by the Messiah’s 
death. When Peter says, “Ye know that ye were not re¬ 
deemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your 
vain conversation, received by tradition from your fathers; 
but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without 
blemish and without spot,” — we must inquire to whom he is 
addressing these words. If it be to the Jews, the interpre¬ 
tation which I have hitherto given of such language will not 
apply, and we must seek an explanation altogether different. 
But the whole manner of this Epistle, the complexion of its 
phraseology throughout, convinces me that it was addressed 
especially to the Gentile converts of Asia Minor; and that 
the redemption of which it speaks is no other than that 
which is the frequent theme of their own Apostle. 

In the passage just quoted, the form of expression itself 
suggests the idea, that Peter is addressing a class which did 
not include himself: “ Ye were not redeemed,” &c.; farther 
on, in the same Epistle, the same sentiment occurs, however, 

should rejoice without boasting or high-mindedness. “ If,” he says, “ the fall 
of them (the Israelites) be the riches of the world (the Gentiles), and the 
diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles, how much more their fulness! 
For I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am the Apostle of the Gentiles, 

I magnify my office; if, by any means, I may provoke to emulation them 
which are my flesh (the Jews), and save some of them; for if the casting 
away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of 
them be but life from the dead ? ” 

* Acts xx. 28 . It is hardly necessary to say, that the reading of our 
common version, “ church of God ,' * 1 wants the support of the best authorities; 
and that, with the general consent of the most competent critics, Griesbacli 
reads “ church of the Lord . 11 



SCHEME'OF VICARIOUS REDEMPTION. 


119 


without any such visible restriction. Exhorting to patient 
suffering for conscience’ sake, he appeals to the example of 
Christ; “ who, when he suffered, threatened not, but com¬ 
mitted himself to Him that judgeth righteously; who, his own 
self, bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, 
being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness ”: yet, 
with instant change in the expression, revealing his corre¬ 
spondents to us, the Apostle adds, “ by whose stripes ye 
were healed. For ye were as sheep going astray; but are 
now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls.” 
With the instinct of a gentle and generous heart, the writer, 
treating in plain terms- of the former sins of those whom he 
addresses, puts himself in with them; and avoids every ap¬ 
pearance of that spiritual pride by which the Jew constantly 
rendered himself offensive to the Gentile. 

Again, in this letter, he recommends the duty of patient 
endurance, by appeal to the same consideration of Christ’s 
disinterested self-sacrifice. “ It is better, if the will of God 
be so, that ye suffer for well-doing than for evil-doing: for 
Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, 
that he might bring us to God.” And who are these “ un- 
just” that are thus brought to God? The Apostle instantly 
explains, by describing how the “ Jews by nature ” lost pos¬ 
session of Messiah by the death of his person, and “ sinners 
of the Gentiles ” gained him by the resurrection of his im¬ 
mortal nature ; “ being put to death in flesh, but quickened 
in spirit; and thereby he went and preached unto the spirits in 
prison , who formerly were without faith” This is clearly a 
description of the heathen world, ere it was brought into 
relation to the Messianic promises. Still further confirmation, 
however, follows. The Apostle adds : “ Forasmuch, then, as 
Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves like¬ 
wise with the same mind; for the time past of our life may 
suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles ; when we 
walked in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revellings, 
banquetings, and abominable idolatries .” If we cannot admit 
this to be a just description of the holy Apostle’s former life, 


120 


INCONSISTENCY OF THE 


we must perceive that, writing to Pagans of whom it was all 
true, he beautifully withholds from his language every trace 
of invidious distinction, puts himself for the moment into the 
same class, and seems to take his share of the distressing 
recollection. 

The habitual delicacy with which Paul, likewise, classed 
himself with every order of persons in turn, to whom he had 
anything painful to say, is known to every intelligent reader 
of his Epistles. Hence, in his writings too, we have often 
to consider with whom it is that he is holding his dialogue, and 
to make our interpretation dependent on the answer. When, 
for example, he says, that Jesus “ was delivered for our 
bffences. and was raised again for our justificatioh ”; I ask, 
“ For whose ? — was it for everybody’s ? — or for the Jews’, 
since Paul was a Hebrew?” On looking closely into the 
argument, I find it beyond doubt that neither of these answers 
is correctand that the Apostle, in conformity with his fre¬ 
quent practice, is certainly identifying himself, Israelite though 
he was, with the Gentiles , to whom, at that moment, his rea¬ 
soning applies itself. The neighboring verses have expres¬ 
sions which clearly enough declare this: “ when we were yet 
without strength” and “ while we were yet sinners ,” Christ died 
for us. It is .to the Gentile church at Corinth, and while 
expatiating on their privileges and relations as such, that 
Paul speaks of the disqualifications and legal unholiness of 
the heathen, as vanishing in the death of the Messiah ; as the 
recovered leper’s uncleanness was removed, and his banish¬ 
ment reversed, and his exclusion from the temple ended, 
when the lamb without blemish, which the law prescribed 
as his sin-otfering, bled beneath the knife, so did God provide 
in Jesus a lamb without blemish for the exiled and unsancti¬ 
fied Gentiles, to bring them from their far dwelling in the 
leprous haunts of this world’s wilderness, and admit them to 
the sanctuary of spiritual health and worship: “ He hath 
made him to be a sin-offering for us (Gentiles), who knew no 
sin; that we might be made the justified of God in him ”; 
entering, under the Messiah, the community of saints. That, 


SCHEME OF VICARIOUS REDEMPTION. 


121 


in this sacrificial allusion, the Gentile adoption is still the 
Apostle’s only theme, is evident hence: that twice in this 
very passage he declares that he is speaking of that peculiar 
“ reconciliation,” the word and ministry of which have been 
committed to himself; he is dwelling on the topic most natural 
to one who “ magnified his office,” as “ Apostle of the Gen¬ 
tiles.” 

To the same parties was Paul writing, when he said, 
“ Christ, our passover, is sacrificed for us.” Frequently as 
this sentence is cited in evidence of the doctrine of Atone¬ 
ment, there is hardly a verse in Scripture more utterly inap¬ 
plicable ; nor, if the doctrine were true, could anything be 
more inept than an allusion to it in this place. I do not 
dwell on the fact that the paschal lamb was neither sin-offer¬ 
ing nor proper sacrifice at all: for the elucidation of the 
death of Jesus by sacrificial analogies is as easy and wel¬ 
come as any other mode of representing it. But I turn to 
the whole context, and seek for its leading idea, before multi¬ 
plying inferences from a subordinate illustration. I find the 
author treating, not of the deliverance of believers from curse 
or exclusion, but of their duty to keep the churches cleansed, 
by the expulsion of notoriously profligate members. Such 
persons they are to cast from them, as the Jews, at the pass- 
over, swept from their houses all the leaven they contained; 
and as for eight days, at that season, only pure unleavened 
bread was allowed for use, so the Church must keep the 
Gospel festival free from the ferment of malice and wicked¬ 
ness, and tasting nothing but sincerity and truth. This com¬ 
parison is the primary sentiment of the whole passage ; under 
cover of which the Apostle is urging the Corinthians to expel 
a certain licentious offender: and only because the feast of 
unleavened bread, on which his fancy has alighted, set in with 
the day of passover, does he allude to this in completion of 
the figure. As his correspondents were Gentiles, their Chris¬ 
tianity commenced with the death of Christ; with him, as an 
immortal, their spiritual relations commenced ; when he rose, 
they rose with him, as by a divine attraction, from ail earthly 
11 


122 


INCONSISTENCY OF TIIE 


to a heavenly state; their old and corrupt man had been 
buried together with him, and, with the human infirmities of 
his person, left behind for ever in his sepulchre; and it be¬ 
came them “ to seek those things which are above,” and to 
“ yield themselves to God, as those that are alive from the 
dead.” This period of the Lord’s sequestration in the heavens 
Paul represents as a festival of purity to the disciples on 
earth, ushered in by the self-sacrifice of Christ. The time is 
come, he says ; cast away the leaven, for the passover is slain, 
blessed bread of heaven to them that taste it! let nothing 
now be seen in all the household of the Church, but the un¬ 
leavened cake of simplicity and love. 

Paul again appears as the advocate of the Gentiles, when 
he protests that now between them and the Jews “ there is 
no difference, since all have sinned and come short of the 
glory of God ”; that the Hebrew has lost all claim to the 
Messianic adoption, and can have no hope but in that free 
grace of God, which has a sovereign right to embrace the 
heathen too; and which, in fact, has compassed the Gentiles 
within its redemption, by causing Jesus the Messiah to die; 
“ by whose blood God hath set forth a propitiation, through 
faith; to evince his justice, while overlooking, with the for¬ 
bearance of God, transgressions past; — to evince his justice 
in the arrangements of the present crisis; which preserve his 
justice (to the Israelite), yet justify on mere discipleship to 
Jesus.” The great question which the Apostle discusses 
throughout this Epistle is this: “ On what terms is a man 
now admitted as a subject to the Messiah, so as to be ac¬ 
knowledged by him, when he comes to erect his kingdom ? ” 
“ He must be one of the circumcised, to whom alone the holy 
law and promises are given,” says the Jew. “ That is well,” 
replies Paul; “only the promises, you remember, are con¬ 
ditional on obedience; and he who claims by the law must 
stand the judgment of the law. Can your nation abide this 
test, and will you stake your hopes upon the issue ? Or is 
there on record against you a violation of every condition of 
your boasted covenant, — wholesale and national transgression, 


SCHEME OF VICARIOUS REDEMPTION. 


123 


which your favorite code itself menaces with ‘cutting off’? 
Have you even rejected and crucified the very Messiah, who 
was tendered to you in due fulfilment of the promises ? Take 
your trial by the principles of your law, and you must be 
cast off, and perish, as certainly as the heathen whom you 
despise; and whose rebellion against the natural law, gross 
as it is, does not surpass your own offences against the tables 
of Moses. You must abandon the claim of right, the high 
talk of God’s justice and plighted faith; — which are alike 
ill suited to you both. The rules of law are out of the ques¬ 
tion, and would admit nobody; and we must ascend again 
to the sovereign will and free mercy of Him who is the source 
of law; and who, to bestow a blessing which its resources 
cannot confer, may devise new methods of beneficence. God 
has violated no pledge. Messiah came to Israel, and never 
went beyond its bounds; the uncircumcised had no part in 
him; and every Hebrew who desired it was received as his 
subject. But when the people would not have him, and 
threw away their ancient title, was God either to abandon his 
vicegerent, or to force him on the unwilling ? No: rather 
did it befit him to say: ‘ If they will reject and crucify my 
servant, — why, let him die, and then he is Israelite no more; 
I will raise him, and take him apart in his immortality ; where 
his blood of David is lost; and the holiness of his humanity 
is glorified; and all shall be his, who will believe, and love 
him, as he there exists, spiritually and truly.”’ Thus, ac¬ 
cording to Paul, does God provide a new method of adoption 
or justification, without violating any promises of the old. 
Thus he makes Faith in Jesus — a moral act, instead of a 
genealogical accident — the single condition of reception into 
the Divine kingdom upon earth. Thus, after the passage of 
Christ from this world to another, Jew and Gentile are on an 
equality in relation to the Messiah; the one gaining nothing 
by his past privileges; the other, not visited with exclusion 
for past idolatry and sins, but assured, in Messiah’s death, 
that these are to be overlooked, and treated as if cleansed 
away. He finds himself invited into the very penetralia of 


124 


INCONSISTENCY OF TIIE 


that sanctuary of pure faith and hope, from which before he 
had been repelled as an unclean thing; as if its ark of mercy 
had been purified for ever from his unworthy touch, or he 
himself had been sprinkled by some sudden consecration. 
And all this was the inevitable and instant effect of that death 
on Calvary, which took Messiah from the Jews and gave him 
to the world. 

With emphasis, not less earnest than that of Paul, does 
the Apostle John repudiate the notion of any claim on the 
Divine admission by law or righteousness; and insist on 
humble and unqualified acceptance of God’s free grace and 
remission for the past, as the sole avenue of entrance to the 
kingdom This avenue was open, however, to all “ who 
confessed that Jesus the Messiah had come in the flesh ” ; in 
other words, that, during his mortal life, Jesus had been 
indicated as this future Prince ; and that his ministry was the 
Messiah’s preliminary visit to that earth on which shortly he 
would reappear to reign. The great object of that visit was 
to prepare the world for his real coming; for as yet it was 
very unfit for so great a crisis ; and especially to open, by his 
death, a way of admission for the Gentiles, and frame, on 
their behalf, an act of oblivion for the past. “ If,” says the 
Apostle to them, “ we walk in the light, as he is in the light ” 
(of love and heaven), “we have fellowship one with another, 
and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all 
sin ”: the Israelite will embrace the Gentiles in fraternal re¬ 
lations, knowing that the cross has removed their past un¬ 
holiness. Nor let the Hebrew rely on anything now but the 
Divine forbearance ; to appeal to rights will serve no longer: 
“ If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the 
truth is not in us.” Nor let any one despair of a reception, 
or even a restoration, because he has been an idolater and 
sinner: “ Jesus Christ the righteous ” is “ an advocate with 
the Father” for admitting all who are willing to be his ; “ and 
he is the propitiation for our sins ; and not for ours only (not 
merely for our small portion of Gentiles, already converted) ; 
but also for the whole world,” if they will but accept him. 


SCHEME OF VICARIOUS REDEMPTION. 


125 


lie died to become universal; to make all his own; to spread 
an oblivion, wide as the earth, over all that had embarrassed 
the relations to the Messiah, and made men aliens, instead of 
Sons of God. Yet did no spontaneous movement of their 
good affections solicit this change. It was “ not that we 
(Gentiles) loved God; but that he loved us, and sent his 
Son, the propitiation for our sins ” ; “ he sent his only-begot¬ 
ten Son into the world, that we might live through him.” 
That this Epistle was addressed to Gentiles, and is therefore 
occupied with the same leading idea respecting the cross 
which pervades the writings of Paul, is rendered probable by 
its concluding words, which could hardly be appropriate to 
Jews : “ Keep yourselves from idols.” How little the Apostle 
associated any vicarious idea even with a form of phrase 
most constantly employed by modern theology to express it, 
is evident from the parallel which he draws, in the following 
words, between the death of our Lord and that of the Chris¬ 
tian martyrs: “ Hereby perceive we love, because Christ 
laid down his life for us ; and we ought to lay down our 
lives for the brethren ,” 

Are, then, the Gentiles alone beneficially affected by the 
death of Christ ? and is no wider efficacy ever assigned to it 
in Scripture ? The great number of passages to which I have 
already applied this single interpretation will show that I 
consider it as comprising the great leading idea of the Apos¬ 
tolic theology on this subject; nor do I think that there is 
(out of the Epistle to the Hebrews, which I shall soon no¬ 
tice) a single doctrinal allusion to the cross, from which this 
conception is wholly absent. At the same time, I am not 
prepared to maintain, that this is the only view of the cruci¬ 
fixion and resurrection ever present to the mind of the 
Apostles. Jews themselves, they naturally inquired, how 
Israel , in particular, stood affected by the unanticipated 
death of its Messiah; in what way its relations were changed, 
when the offered Prince became the executed victim; and 
how far matters would have been different, if, as had been 
expected, the Anointed had assumed his rights and taken 
11 * 


126 


INCONSISTENCY OE THE 


his power at once; and, instead of making his first advent a 
mere preliminary and warning visit “ in the flesh,” had set 
up the kingdom forthwith, and gathered with him his few 
followers to “ reign on the earth.” Had this — instead of 
submission to death, removal, and delay — been his adopted 
course, what would have become of his own nation, who had 
rejected him, — who must have been tried by that law which 
was their boast, and under which he came, — who had long 
been notorious offenders against its conditions, and now 
brought down its final curse by despising the claims of the 
accredited Messiah ? They must have been utterly “ cut 
off,” and cast out among the “ aliens from the commonwealth 
of Israel,” “ without Messiah,” “ without hope,” “ without 
God ”; for while “ circumcision profiteth, if thou keep the 
law ; yet if thou be a breaker of the law , thy circumcision is 
made uncircumcision.” Had he come then “ to be glorified 
in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe,” — 
had he then been “ revealed with his mighty angels ” (whom 
he might have summoned by “legions”), — it must have 
been “ in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that knew 
not God, nor obeyed the glad tidings of the Lord Jesus 
Christ ”; to “ punish with everlasting destruction from the 
presence of the Lord and the glory of his power.” The sins 
and prospects of Israel being thus terrible, and its rejection 
imminent (for Messiah was already in the midst of them), 
he withheld his hand; refused to precipitate their just fate; 
and said, “ Let us give them time, and wait; I will go apart 
into the heavens, and peradventure they will repent; only 
they must receive me then spiritually, and by hearty faith, 
not by carnal right, admitting thus the willing Gentile with 
themselves.” And so he prepared to die and retire ; he did 
not permit them to be cut off, but was cut off himself in¬ 
stead ; he restrained the curse of their own law from falling 
on them, and rather perished himself by a foul and accursed 
lot, which that same law pronounces to be the vilest and 
most polluted of deaths. Thus says St. Paul to the Jews: 
“ He hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made 


SCHEME OF VICARIOUS REDEMPTION. 


127 


a curse for us ; for it is written, ‘ Cursed is every one that 
hangeth on a tree/ ” * In this way, but for the death of the 
Messiah, Israel too must have been lost; and by that event 
they received time for repentance, and a way for remission 
of sins; found a means of reconciliation still; saw their 
providence, which had been lowering for judgment, opening 
over them in propitiation once more ; the just had died for 
the unjust, to bring them to God. What was this delay,— 
this suspension of judgment, — this opportunity of return 
and faith, — but an instance of “ the long-suffering of God,” 
with which “ he endures the vessels of wrath (Jews) fitted to 
destruction, and makes known the riches of his glory on 
the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto 
glory ” ? If Christ had not withdrawn awhile, if his power 
had been taken up at once, and wielded in stern and legal jus¬ 
tice, a deluge of judgment must have overwhelmed the earth, 
and swept away both Jew and Gentile, leaving but a remnant 
safe. But in mercy was the mortal life of Jesus turned into 
a preluding message of notice and warning, like the tidings 
which Noah received of the flood; and as the growing frame 
of the ark gave signal to the world of the coming calamity, 
afforded an interval for repentance, and made the patriarch, 
as he built, a constant “ preacher of righteousness ”; so the 
increasing body of the Church, since the warning retreat of 
Christ to heaven, proclaims the approaching “day of the 
Lord,” admonishes that “ all should come to repentance,” and 
fly betimes to that faith and baptism which Messiah’s death 
and resurrection have left as an ark of safety. “ Once, in 
the days of Noah, the long-suffering of God waited while the 
ark was preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls, were 
saved by water: a representation, this, of the way in which 
baptism (not, of course, carnal washing, but the engagement 
of a good conscience with God) saves us now, by the resur¬ 
rection of Jesus Christ; who is gone into heaven, and is on 

* * Gal. Hi. 13. Even here the Apostle cannot refrain from adverting to his 

Gentile interpretation of the cross; for he adds, —“that the blessing of 
Abraham might come on the Gentiles, through Jesus Christ.” 





128 


INCONSISTENCY OF THE 


the right hand of God; angels, and authorities, and powers, 
being made subject to him.” Yet “the time is short,” and 
must be “ redeemed ” ; “ it is the last hour ”; “ the Lord,” 
“ the coming of the Lord,” “ the end of all things,” are “ at 
hand.” 

I have described one aspect, which the death of the Mes¬ 
siah presented to the Jews; and, in this, we have found 
another primary conception, explanatory of the Scriptural 
language respecting the cross. Of the two relations in which 
this event appeared (the Gentile and the Israelitish), I believe 
the former to be by far the most familiar to the New Testa¬ 
ment authors, and to furnish the true interpretation of almost 
all their phraseology on the subject. But, as my readers may 
have noticed, many passages receive illustration by reference 
to either notion ; and some may have a meaning compounded 
of both. I must not pause to make any minute adjustment 
of these claims, on the part of the two interpreting ideas: it 
is enough that, either separately or in union, they have now 
been taken round the whole circle of apostolic language re¬ 
specting the cross, and detected in every difficult passage the 
presence of sense and truth, and the absence of all hint of 
vicarious atonement. 

It was on the unbelieving portion of the Jewish people that 
the death of their Messiah conferred the national blessings 
and opportunities to which I have adverted. But to the con¬ 
verts who had been received by him during his mortal life, 
and who would have been heirs of his glory, had he assumed 
it at once, it was less easy to point out any personal benefits 
from the cross. That the Christ had retired from this world 
was but a disappointing postponement of their hopes; that 
he had perished as a felon was shocking to their pride, and 
turned their ancient boast into a present scorn; that he had 
become spiritual and immortal made him no longer theirs 
“ as concerning the flesh,” and, by admitting Gentiles with 
themselves, set aside their favorite law. So offensive to 
them was this unexpected slight on the institutions of Moses, 
immemorially reverenced as the ordinances of God, that it 


SCHEME OF VICARIOUS REDEMPTION. 


129 


became important to give some turn to the death of Jesus, 
by which that event might be harmonized with the national 
system, and be shown to effect the abrogation of the law , 
on principles strictly legal . This was the object of the writer 
of the Epistle to the Hebrews ; who thus gives us a third idea 
of the relations of the cross, — bearing, indeed, an essential 
resemblance to St. Paul’s Gentile view, but illustrated ip a 
manner altogether different. No trace is to be observed here 
of Paul’s noble glorying in the cross : so studiously is every 
allusion to the crucifixion avoided, till all the argumentative 
part of the Epistle has been completed, that a reader finds the 
conclusion already in sight, without having gained any notion 
of the mode of the Lord’s death, whether even it was natural 
or violent, — a literal human sacrifice, or a voluntary self- 
immolation. Its ignominy and its agonies are wholly un¬ 
mentioned ; and his mortal infirmities and sufferings are 
explained, not as the spontaneous adoptions of previous com¬ 
passion in him, but as God’s fitting discipline for rendering 
him “a merciful and faithful high-priest.” They are re¬ 
ferred to in the tone of apology, not of pride; as needing 
rather to be reconciled with his office, than to be boldly 
expounded as its grand essential. The object of the author 
clearly is, to find a place for the death of Jesus among the 
Messianic functions; and he persuades the Hebrew Chris¬ 
tians that it is (not a satisfaction for moral guilt, but) a com¬ 
mutation for the Mosaic Law. In order to understand his 
argument, we must advert for a moment to the prejudices 
which it was designed to conciliate and correct. 

It is not easy for us to realize the feelings with which the 
Israelite, in the yet palmy days of the ievitical worship, 
would hear of an abrogation of the Law ; — the anger and 
contempt with which the mere bigot would repudiate the 
suggestion; — the terror with which the new convert would 
make trial of his freedom ; — the blank and infidel feeling 
with which he would look round, and find himself drifted 
away from his anchorage of ceremony ; — the sinking heart 
with which he would hear the reproaches of his countrymen 


130 


INCONSISTENCY OF THE 


against his apostasy. Every authoritative ritual draws to¬ 
wards itself an attachment too strong for reason and the 
sense of right; and transfers the feeling of Obligation from 
realities to symbols. Among the Hebrews this effect was 
the more marked and the more pernicious, because their 
ceremonies were in many instances only remotely connected 
with any important truth or excellent end; they were sepa¬ 
rated by several removes from any spiritual utility. Rites 
were enacted to sustain other rites; institution lay beneath 
institution, through so many successive steps, that the crown¬ 
ing principle at the summit easily passed out of sight. To 
keep alive the grand truth of the Divine Unity, there was a 
gorgeous temple worship ; to perform this worship there was 
a priesthood; to support the priesthood there were (among 
other sources of income) dues paid in the form of sacrifice; 
to provide against the non-payment of dues there were penal¬ 
ties ; to prevent an injurious pressure of these penalties, there 
were exemptions, as in cases of sickness; and to put a check 
on trivial claims of exemption, it must be purchased by sub¬ 
mission to a fee, under name of an atonement. Wherever 
such a system is received as divine, and based on the same 
authority with the great law of duty, it will always, by its 
definiteness and precision, attract attention from graver moral 
obligations. Its materiality renders it calculable: its account 
with the conscience can be exactly ascertained: as it has little 
obvious utility to men, it appears the more directly paid to 
God: it is regarded as the special means of pleasing him, of 
placating his anger, and purchasing his promises. Hence it 
may often happen, that the more the offences against the 
spirit of duty, the more are rites multiplied in propitiation ; 
and the harvest of ceremonies and that of crimes ripen to¬ 
gether. 

At a state not far from this had the Jews arrived when 
Christianity was preached. Their moral sentiments were so 
far perverted, that they valued nothing in themselves, in com¬ 
parison with their legal exactitude, and hated all beyond 
themselves for their want of this. They were eagerly ex- 


SCHEME OF VICARIOUS REDEMPTION. 


101 


pecting the Deliverer’s kingdom, nursing up their ambition 
for his triumphs; curling the lip, as the lash of oppression 
fell upon them, in suppressed anticipation of vengeance; sa¬ 
tiating a temper, at once fierce and servile, with dreams of 
Messiah’s coming judgment, when the blood of the patri¬ 
archs should be the title of the world’s nobles, and the ever¬ 
lasting reign should begin in Jerusalem Why was the hour 
delayed ? they impatiently asked themselves. Was it that 
they had offended Jehovah, and secretly sinned against some 
requirement of his law ? And then they set themselves to a 
renewed precision, a more slavish punctiliousness than be¬ 
fore. Ascribing their continued depression to their imper¬ 
fect legal obedience, they strained their ceremonialism tighter 
than ever; and hoped to be soon justified from their past sins, 
and ready for the mighty prince and the latter days. 

What, then, must have been the feeling of the Hebrew, 
when told that all his punctualities had been thrown away,— 
that, at the advent, faith in Jesus, not obedience to the law, 
was to be the title to admission, — and that the redeemed 
at that day would be, not the scrupulous Pharisee, whose 
dead works would be of no avail, but all who, with the heart, 
have worthily confessed the name of the Lord Jesus ? What 
doctrine could be more unwelcome to the haughty Israelite ? 
it dashed his pride of ancestry to the ground. It brought to 
the same level with himself the polluted Gentile, — whose 
presence would alone render all unclean in the Messiah’s 
kingdom. It proved his past ritual anxieties to have been 
all wasted. It cast aside for the future the venerated law ; 
left it in neglect to die ; and made all the apparatus of Provi¬ 
dence for its maintenance end in absolutely nothing. Was 
then the Messiah to supersede, and not to vindicate, the law ? 
How different this from the picture which prophets had drawn 
of his golden age, when Jerusalem was to be the pride of 
the earth, and her temple the praise of nations, sought by 
the feet of countless pilgrims, and decked with the splendor 
of their gifts ! How could a true Hebrew be justified in a 
life without law ? How think himself safe in a profession, 


1G2 


INCONSISTENCY OF THE 


which was without temple, without priest, without altar, 
without victim? 

Not unnaturally, then, did the Hebrews regard with re¬ 
luctance two of the leading features of Christianity; the 
death of the Messiah, and the freedom from the law. The 
Epistle addressed to them was designed to soothe their un¬ 
easiness, and to show that, if the Mosaic institutions were 
superseded, it was in conformity with principles and analogies 
contained within themselves. With great address, the writer 
links the two difficulties together, and makes the one explain 
the other. He finds a ready means of effecting this, in the 
sacrificial ideas familiar to every Hebrew ; for by represent¬ 
ing the death of Jesus as a commutation for legal observ¬ 
ances, he is only ascribing to it an operation acknowledged to 
have place in the death of every lamb slain as a sin-offering 
at the altar. These offerings were a distinct recognition, on 
the part of the Levitical code, of a principle of equivalents for 
its ordinances; a proof that, under certain conditions, they 
might yield: nothing more, therefore, was necessary, than to 
show that the death of Christ established those conditions. 
And such a method of argument was attended by this ad¬ 
vantage, that, while the practical end would be obtained of 
terminating all ceremonial observance, the law was yet treated 
as in theory perpetual; not as ignominiously abrogated, but 
as legitimately commuted. Just as the Israelite, in paying 
his offering at the altar to compensate for ritual omissions, 
recognized thereby the claims of the law, while he obtained 
impunity for its neglect; so, if Providence could be shown to 
have provided a legal substitute for the system, its authority 
was acknowledged at the moment that its abolition was se¬ 
cured. 

Let us advert, then, to the functions of the Mosaic sin- 
offerings, to which the writer has recourse to illustrate his 
main position. They were of the nature of a mulct or ac¬ 
knowledgment rendered for unconscious or inevitable disregard 
of ceremonial liabilities , and contraction of ceremonial un¬ 
cleanness . Such uncleanness might be incurred from various 


SCHEME OF VICARIOUS REDEMPTION. 


103 


causes; and, while unremoved by the appointed methods of 
purification, disqualified from attendance at the sanctuary, 
and “ cut off” “ the guilty ” “ from among the congregation.” 
To touch a dead body, to enter a tent where a corpse lay, 
rendered a person “ unclean for seven days ”; to come in 
contact with a forbidden animal, a bone, a grave, to be next 
to any one struck with sudden death, to be afflicted with 
certain kinds of bodily disease and infirmity, unwittingly to 
lay a finger on a person unclean, occasioned defilement, and 
necessitated a purification or an atonement. Independently 
of these offences, enforced upon the Israelite by the accidents 
of life, it was not easy for even the most cautious worshipper 
to keep pace with the complicated series of petty debts which 
the law of ordinances was always running up against him. 
If his offering had an invisible blemish ; if he omitted a tithe, 
because “ he wist it not ”; or inadvertently fell into arrear, 
by a single day, with respect to a known liability; if absent 
from disease, he was compelled to let his ritual account accu¬ 
mulate ; il though it be hidden from him,” he must “ be guilty, 
and bear his iniquity,” and bring his victim. On the birth 
of a child, the mother, after the lapse of a prescribed pe¬ 
riod, made her pilgrimage to the temple, presented her sin- 
offering, and “ the priest made atonement for her.” The poor 
leper, long banished from the face of men, and unclean by 
the nature of his disease, became a debtor to the sanctuary, 
and on return from his tedious quarantine brought his lamb 
of atonement, and departed thence, clear from neglected obli¬ 
gations to his law. It was impossible, however, to provide by 
specific enactment for every case of ritual transgression and 
impurity, arising from inadvertence or necessity. Scarcely 
could it be expected that the courts of worship themselves 
would escape defilement, from imperfections in the offerings, 
or unconscious disqualification in people or in priest. To clear 
off the whole invisible residue of such sins, an annual u day 
of atonement ” was appointed; the people thronged the ave¬ 
nues and approaches of the tabernacle; in their presence a 
kid was slain for their own transgressions, and for the high- 
12 


134 


INCONSISTENCY OF THE 


priest the more dignified expiation of a heifer; charged with 
the blood of each successively, he sprinkled not only the 
exterior altar open to the sky, but, passing through the first 
and holy chamber into the Iloly of Holies (never entered 
else), he touched, with finger dipped in blood, the sacred lid 
(the Mercy-seat) and foreground of the Ark. At that mo¬ 
ment, while he yet lingers behind the veil, the purification is 
complete; on no worshipper of Israel does any legal unhoh- 
ness rest; and were it possible for the high-priest to remain 
in that interior retreat of Jehovah, still protracting the expia¬ 
tory act, so long would this national purity continue, and the 
debt of ordinances be effaced as it arose. But he must re¬ 
turn ; the sanctifying rite must end ; the people be dismissed; 
the priests resume the daily ministrations ; the law open its 
stern account afresh; and in the mixture of national exacti¬ 
tude and neglects, defilements multiply again till the recurring 
anniversary lifts off the burden once more. Every year, 
then, the necessity comes round of “ making atonement for 
the holy sanctuary,” “ for the tabernacle,” u for the altar,” 
“ for the priests, and for all the people of the congregation.” 
Yet, though requiring periodical renewal, the rite, so far as it 
went, had an efficacy which no Hebrew could deny; for cere¬ 
monial sins, unconscious or inevitable (to which all atonement 
was limited *), it was accepted as an indemnity; and put it 
beyond doubt that Mosaic obedience was commutable. 

Such was the system of ideas, by availing himself of which 
the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews would persuade his 
correspondents to forsake their legal observances. “ You can 
look without uneasiness,” he suggests, “ on your ritual omis- 


* In three or four instances, it is true, a sin-offering is demanded from the 
perpetrator of some act of moral wrong . But in all these cases a suitable 
punishment was ordained also; a circumstance inconsistent with the idea, 
that the expiation procured remission of guilt. The sacrifice appended to 
the penal infliction indicates the twofold character of the act, — at once a 
ceremonial defilement and a crime; and requiring, to remedy the one, an 
atoning rite, — to chastise the other, a judicial penalty. See an excellent 
tract by Rev. Edward Higginson, of Hull, entitled, “ The Sacrifice of Christ 
scripturally and rationally interpreted,” particularly pp. 30-34. 



SCHEME OF VICARIOUS REDEMPTION. 


135 


sions, when the blood of some victim lias been presented in¬ 
stead, and the penetralia of your sanctuary have been sprin¬ 
kled with the offering: well, on no other terms would I soothe 
your anxiety; precisely such equivalent sacrifice does Chris¬ 
tianity exhibit, only of so peculiar a nature, that, for all cere¬ 
monial neglects, intentional no less than inadvertent, you may 
rely upon indemnity.” The Jews entertained a belief respect¬ 
ing their temple, which enabled the writer to give a singular 
force and precision to his analogy. They conceived that the 
tabernacle of their worship was but the copy of a divine 
structure, devised by God himself, made by no created hand, 
and preserved eternally in heaven : this was “ the true taber¬ 
nacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man ”; which no 
mortal had beheld, except Moses in the mount, that he might 
“ make all things according to that pattern ”; within whose 
Holy of Holies dwelt no emblem or emanation of God’s 
presence, but his own immediate Spirit; and the celestial 
furniture of which required, in proportion to its dignity, the 
purification of a nobler sacrifice, and the ministrations of a 
diviner priest, than befitted the “ worldly sanctuary ” below. 
And who then can mistake the meaning of Christ’s departure 
from this world, or doubt what office he conducts above? 
He is called by his ascension to the pontificate of heaven; 
consecrated, “ not after tire law of any carnal commandment, 
but after the power of an endless life ” ; he drew aside the veil 
of his mortality, and passed into the inmost court of God: and 
as he must needs “ have somewhat to offer,” he takes the only 
blood he had ever shed, — which was his own, — and, like 
the High-Priest before the Mercy-seat, sanctifies therewith the 
people that stand without, “ redeeming the transgressions ” 
which “ the first covenant ” of rites entailed. And he has 
not returned; still is he hid within that holiest place; and 
still the multitude he serves turn thither a silent and expec¬ 
tant gaze; he prolongs the purification still; and while he 
appears not, no other rites can be resumed, nor any legal 
defilement be contracted. Thus, meanwhile, ordinances cease 
their obligation, and the sin against them has lost its power. 


136 


INCONSISTENCY OF THE 


ITow different this from the offerings of Jerusalem, whose 
temple was but the “ symbol and shadow ” of that sanctuary 
above. In the Hebrew “ sacrifices there was a remembrance 
again made of sins every year ”; “ the high-priest annually 
entered the holy place ” ; being but a mortal, he could not go 
in with his own blood and remain, but must take that of other 
creatures and return ; and hence it became “ not possible that 
the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins,” for 
instantly they began to accumulate again. But to the very 
nature of Christ’s offering a perpetuity of efficacy belongs ; 
bearing no other than “ his own blood,” he was immortal 
when Ids ministration began, and “ ever liveth to make his 
intercession ” ; he could “ not offer himself often, for then 
must he often have suffered since the foundation of the 
world,” — and “ it is appointed unto men only once to die ”; 
so that “ once for all he entered into the holy place, and 
obtained a redemption that is 'perpetual ”; “ once in the end 
of the world hath he appeared, and by sacrificing himself 
hath absolutely put away sin ”; “ this man, after he had 
offered one sacrifice for sins, for ever sat down on the right 
hand of God,” “ for by one offering he hath perfected for 
ever them that are sanctified.” The ceremonial, then, with 
its periodical transgressions and atonements, is suspended ; 
the services of the outer tabernacle cease, for the holiest of 
all is made manifest; one who is “ priest for ever ” dwells 
therein ; — one “ consecrated for evermore,” “ holy, harmless, 
undefiled, in his celestial dwelling quite separate from sinners ; 
who needeth not daily , as those high-priests, to offer up sacri¬ 
fice, first for his own sins, and then for the people’s ; for this 
he did once for all when he offered up himself.” * 


* Heb. vii. 27. Let the reader look carefully again into the verbal and 
logical structure of this verse; and then ask himself whether it is not as 
plain as words can make it, that Christ “once for all ” offered up “ a sacrifice 
Jirst for his own sins, and then for the people's. The argument surely is 
this: “ He need not do the daily thing, for he has done it once for all; the 
never-finished work of other pontiffs, a single act of his achieved.” The 
sentiment loses its meaning, unless that which he did once is the selfsame 
thing which they did always; and what was that? — the offering by the 



SCHEME OF VICARIOUS REDEMPTION. 


137 ' 


Nor is it in its perpetuity alone that the efficacy of the 
Christian sacrifice transcends the atonements of the law ; it 
removes a higher order of ritual transgressions. It cannot 
be supposed, indeed, that Messiah’s life is no nobler offering 
than that of a creature from the herd or flock, and will confer 
no more immunity. Accordingly, it goes beyond those “ sins 
of ignorance ,” those ceremonial inadvertences, for which alone 
there was remission in Israel; and reaches to voluntary neg¬ 
lects of the sacerdotal ordinances; insuring indemnity for 
legal omissions, when incurred not simply by the accidents 
of the flesh, but even by intention of the conscience. This 
is no greater boon than the dignity of the sacrifice requires ; 
and does but give to his people below that living relation of 
soul to God which he himself sustains above. “ If the blood 
of bulls and of goats .... sanctifieth to the purifying of the 

hi,ch-priest of a sacrifice first for his own sins, and then for the people’s. 
With what propriety, then, can Mr. Buddicom ask us this question: “ Why 
is he said to have excelled the Jewish high-priest in not offering a sacrifice 
for himself? ” I submit, that no such thing is said; but that, on the con¬ 
trary, it is positively affirmed that Christ did offer sacrifice for his own sins. 
So plain indeed is this, that Trinitarian commentators are forced to slip in a 
restraining word and an additional sentiment into the last clause of the verse. 
Thus Pierce: “ Who has no need, like the priests under the law, from time 
to time to offer up sacrifice first for his own sins, and after that for the peo¬ 
ple’s. For this latter he did once for all when he offered up himself; and as 
to the former , he had no occasion to do it at all." And no doubt the writer of 
the Epistle ought to have said just this, if he intended to draw the kind of 
contrast which orthodox theology requires, between Jesus and the Hebrew 
priests. He limits the opposition between them to one particular; — the Son 
of Aaron made offering daily, — the Son of God once for all. Divines must 
add another particular; — that the Jewish priest atoned for two classes of sins, 
his own and the people’s, — Christ for the people’s only. Suppose for a mo¬ 
ment that this was the author’s design; that the word “ this," instead of hav¬ 
ing its proper grammatical antecedent, may be restrained, as in the commen¬ 
tary cited above, to the sacrifice for the people's sins; then the word “ daily ” 
may be left out, without disturbance to the other substantive particular of 
the contrast: the verse will then stand thus: “Who ncedeth not, as those 
high-priests, to offer up sacrifice for his own sins; for he offered up sacrifice 
for the people’s sins, when he offered up himself.” Here, all the reasoning 
is obviously gone, and the sentence becomes a mere inanity: to make sense, 
we want, instead of the latter clause, the sentiment of Pierce, — for “ he had 
no occasion to do this at all.” This, however, is an invention of the exposi- 

12 * 



138 


INCONSISTENCY OF THE 


flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through 
the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purify 
(even) your conscience from dead works (ritual observances) 
to serve the living God ! ” Let then the ordinances go, and 
the Lord “ put his laws into the mind , and write them in the 
heart”; and let all have “boldness to enter into the holiest 
by the blood of Jesus, by this new and living way which he 
hath consecrated for us ”; “ provoking each other to love 
and to good works.” 

See, then, in brief, the objection of the Hebrews to the 
Gospel; and the reply of their instructor. They said : “ What 
a blank is this; you have no temple, no priest, no ritual! 
How is it that, in his ancient covenant, God is so strict about 
ceremonial service, and permits no neglect, however inciden¬ 
tal, without atonement; yet in this new economy throws the 
whole system away, letting us run up an everlasting debt to 
a law confessedly unrepealed, without redemption of it or 
atonement for it ? ” 


tor, more jealous for his author’s orthodoxy than for his composition. I think 
it necessary to add, that, by leaving out the most emphatic -word in this 
verse (the word once ) Mr. Buddicom has suppressed the author’s antithesis, 
and favored the suggestion of his own. I have no doubt that this was uncon¬ 
sciously done; but it shows how system rubs off the angles of Scriptural 
difficulties. — I subjoin a part of the note of John Crell on the.passage: “ I)e 
pontifice Christo loquitur. Quid vero fecit semel Christus? quid aliud, 
quam quod Pontifex antiquus stata die quotannis * faciebat? Principaliter 
autem hie non de oblatione pro peccatis populi; sed de oblatione pro ipsius 
Pontificis peccatis agi, ex superioribus, ipsoque rationum contextu mani- 
festum est.” 

The sins which his sacrifice cancelled must have been of the same order in 
the people and in himself; certainly therefore not moral in their character, 
but ceremonial. His death was, for himself no less than for his Hebrew dis¬ 
ciples, a commutation for the Mosaic ordinances. Had he not died, he must 
have continued under their power; “were he on earth, he would not be a 
priest,” or have “ obtained tiny more excellent ministry,” by which he clears 
away, in the courts above, all possibilities of ritual sin below, and himself 
emerges from legal to spiritual relations. 

* This is obviously the meaning of xa6 ’ rpiepav in this passage; from 
time to time , and in the case alluded to, yearly; not, as in the common ver¬ 
sion, daily. 



SCHEME OF VICARIOUS REDEMPTION. 


139 


“Not without redemption and atonement,” replies their 
evangelical teacher; temple, sacrifice, priest, remain to us 
also, only glorified into proportions worthy of a heavenly 
dispensation; our temple, in the skies ; our sacrifice, Messiah’s 
mortal person; our priest, his ever-living spirit. How poor 
the efficacy of your former offerings! year after year, your 
ritual debt began again: for the blood dried and vanished 
from the tabernacle which it purified; the priest returned 
from the inner shrine ; and when there, he stood, with the 
interceding blood, before the emblem, not the reality, of 
God. But Christ, not at the end of a year, but at the end of 
the great world-era of the Lord, has come to offer up himself, 
— no lamb so unblemished as he; his voluntary and immortal 
spirit, than which was nothing ever more divinely consecrate, 
becomes officiating priest, and strikes his own person with 
immolating blow; it falls and bleeds on earth, as on the outer 
altar, standing on the threshold of the sanctuary of heaven : 
thither he ascends with the memorials of his death, vanishes 
into the Holy of Holies of the skies, presents himself before 
the very living God, and sanctifies the temple there and 
worshippers here ; saying to us, ‘ Drop now for ever the legal 
burdens that weigh you down; doubt not that ydu are free, 
as my glorified spirit here, from the defilements you are wont 
to dread ; I stay behind this veil of visible things, to clear you 
of all such taint, and put away such sin eternally. Trust, 
then, in me, and take up the freedom of your souls: burst the 
dead works, that cling round your conscience like cerements 
of the grave; and rise to me, by the living power of duty, 
and a loving allegiance to God.’ ” 

So far, then, as the death of Christ is treated in Scripture 
dogmatically, rather than historically, its effects are viewed in 
contrast with the different order of things which must have 
been expected, had he, as Messiah, not died. And thus 
regarded, it presented itself to the minds of the Apostles in 
three relations: — 

First, to the Gentiles, whom it drew in to be subjects 
of the Messiah, by breaking down the barriers of his lie- 


140 


INCONSISTENCY OF THE 


brew personality, and rendering him spiritual as well as 
immortal. 

Secondly, to the unbelieving Jews; whom his retirement 
from this world delivered from the judgment due to them, on 
the principles of their own law, both for their general viola¬ 
tion of the conditions of their covenant, and for their positive 
rejection of him. His absence reopened their opportunities ; 
and to tender them this act of long-suffering, he took on him¬ 
self the death which had been incurred by them. 

Thirdly, to the believing Jews ; the terms of whose disci- 
pleship the Messiah’s death had changed, destroying all the 
benefits of their lineage, and substituting an act of the mind, 
the simpler claim of faith. It was therefore a commutation 
for the Ritual Law, and gave them impunity and atonement 
for all its violations. 

With the last two of these relations, beyond their remark¬ 
able historical interest, we have no personal concern. The 
first remains, and ever will remain, worthy of the glorious joy 
with which Paul regarded and expounded it. God has com¬ 
mitted the rule of this world to no exclusive prince, and no 
sacerdotal power, and no earthly majesty; but to one whose 
spirit, too divine to be limited to place and time, broke through 
clouds of sorrow into the clearest heaven; and thither has 
since been drawing our human love, though for ages now he 
has been unseen and immortal. An impartial God, a holy 
and spiritual law, an infinite hope for all men, are given to 
us by that generous cross. 

It is evident that all three of the relations which I have 
described belonged to the death of Jesus, in his capacity of 
Messiah; and could have had no existence if he had not 
borne this character, but had been simply a private martyr to 
his convictions. The foregoing exposition gives a direct 
answer to the inquiry, pressed without the slightest perti¬ 
nence upon the Unitarian, why the phraseology of the cross 
is never found applied to Paul or Peter, or any other noble 
confessor, who died in attestation of the truth; why “ no 
record is given that we are justified by the blood of Stephen; 


SCHEME OF VICARIOUS REDEMPTION. 


141 


or that he bare our sins in his own body, and made reconcilia¬ 
tion for us.” * I know not why such a question should be 
submitted to us; we have assuredly no concern with it > 
having never dreamt that the Apostles could have written as 
they did respecting the death on Calvary, if they had thought 
of it only as a scene of martyrdom. AVe have passed under 
review the whole language of the New Testament on this 
subject; and in the interpretation of it have not even once had 
recourse to this, which is said to be our only view of the 
cross. We have seen the Apostles justly announcing their 
Lord’s death as a proper propitiation; because it placed 
whole classes of men, without any meritorious change in their 
character, in saving relations : declaring' it a strict substitute 
for others’ punishment; on the ground that there were those 
who must have perished, if he had not; and that he died and 
retired, that they might remain and live: describing it as a 
sacrifice which put away sin ; because it did that for ever, 
which the Levitical atonements achieved for a day: but we 
have not found them ever appealing to it either as a satisfac¬ 
tion to the justice of God, or an example of martyrdom to 
men. The Trinitarians have one idea of this event them¬ 
selves ; and their fancy provides their opponents with one 
idea of it; of the former not a trace exists, on any page 
of Scripture; and of the latter the Unitarian need not avail 
himself at all, in explaining the language whereof it is said 
to be his solitary key. 

Nowhere, then, in Scripture do we meet with anything 
corresponding with the prevailing notions of vicarious re¬ 
demption ; everywhere, and most emphatically in the per¬ 
sonal instructions of our Lord, do we find a doctrine of 
forgiveness, and an idea of salvation, utterly inconsistent 
with it. He spake often of the unqualified clemency of God 
to his returning children; never once of the satisfaction 
demanded by his justice. He spake of the joy in heaven 
over one sinner that repenteth; but was silent on the sacri- 


* Mr. Buddicom’s Lecture on the Atonement, p. 471. 



142 


INCONSISTENCY OF THE 


ficial faith, without which penitence is said to be unavailing. 
Nor did he, like his modern disciples, teach that there are 
two separate salvations , which must follow each other in a 
fixed order : first, redemption from the penalty, secondly, 
from the spirit, of sin; pardon for the past, before sanctifica¬ 
tion in the present; a removal of the “ hinderance in God,” 
previous to its annihilation in ourselves. If indeed there 
were in Christianity two deliverances, discriminated and suc¬ 
cessive, it would be more in accordance with its spirit to 
invert this order; — to recall from alienation first, and an¬ 
nounce forgiveness afterwards ; to restore from guilt, before 
cancelling the penalty; and permit the healing to anticipate 
the pardoning love! At least, there would seem, in such 
arrangement, to be a greater jealousy for the holiness of 
the divine law, a severer reservation of God’s complacency 
for those who have broken from the service of sin, than 
in the system which proclaims impunity to the rebel will, 
ere yet its estrangement is renounced. If the outward re¬ 
mission precedes the inward sanctification, then does God 
admit to favor the yet unsanctified; guilt keeps us in no 
exile from him: and though the Holy 8pirit is to follow 
afterwards, it becomes the peculiar office of the cross to lift 
us as we are, with every stain upon the soul and every vile 
habit unretraced, from the brink of perdition to the assur¬ 
ance of glory: the divine lot is given to us, before the 
divine love is awakened in us ; and the heirs of heaven have 
yet to become the children of holiness. With what con¬ 
sistency can the advocates of such an economy accuse its 
opponents of dealing lightly with sin, of deluding men into a 
false trust, and administering seductive flatteries to human 
nature ? * What! shall we, who plant in every soul of sin a 
liell, whence no foreign force, no external God, can pluck 
us, any more than they can tear us from our identity, — we, 
who hide the fires of torment in no viewless gulf, but make 
them ubiquitous as guilt, — we, who suffer no outward agent 


* See Mr. M‘Neile’s Lecture, pp. 302, 311, 328, 340, 341. 




SCHEME OF VICARIOUS REDEMPTION. 


143 


from Eden, or the Abyss, or Calvary, to encroach upon the 
solitude of man’s responsibility, and confuse the simplicity 
of conscience, — we, who teach that God will not, and even 
cannot, spare the froward, till they be froward no more, but 
must permit the burning lash to fall, till they cry aloud for 
mercy, and throw themselves freely into his embrace ; — shall 
we be rebuked for a lax administration of peace, by those 
who think that a moment may turn the alien into the elect ? 
It is no flattery of our nature, to reverence deeply its moral 
capacities: we only discern in them the more solemn trust, 
and see in their abuse the fouler shame. And it is not of 
what men are , but of what they might he , that we encourage 
noble and cheerful thoughts. Doubtless, we think exaggera¬ 
tion possible (which our opponents apparently do not) even 
in the portraiture of their actual character: and perhaps we 
are not the less likely to awaken true convictions of sin, that 
we strive to speak, of it with the voice of discriminative jus¬ 
tice, instead of the monotonous thunders of vengeance; and 
to draw its image in the natural tints provided by the con¬ 
science, rather than in the preternatural flame-color mingled 
in the crucibles of hell. 

In making 'penal redemption and moral redemption sep¬ 
arate and successive, the vicarious scheme, we submit, is 
inconsistent with the Christian idea of salvation. Not that 
we take the second, and reject the first, as our Trinitarian 
friends imagine ; nor that we invert their order. We accept 
them both; putting them, however, not in succession, but in 
super-position, so that they coalesce. The power and the 
punishment of sin perish together; and together begin the 
holiness and the bliss of heaven. Whatever extracts the 
poison cools the sting: nor can the divine vigor of spiritual 
health enter, without its freedom and its joy. That there can 
be any separate dealings with our past guilt and with our 
present character, is not a truth of God, but a fiction of the 
schools. The sanctification of the one is the redemption of 
the other. The mind given up to passion, or chained to 
self, or anyhow alienated from the love and life divine, 
dwells, whatever be its faith, in the dark and terrible abyss; 


144 


INCONSISTENCY OF THE 


while lie, and he only, that, in the freedom and tranquillity 
of great affections, communes with God and toils for men, 
understands the meaning, and wins the promises, of heaven. 
Am I asked: “ What, then, is to persuade the sinful heart 
thus to draw near to God; — what, but a proclamation of 
absolute pardon, can break down the secret distrust, which 
keeps our nature back, wrapped in the reserve of conscious 
guilt ? ” I reply; however much these fears and hesitations 
might cling round us, and restrain us from the mystic Deity 
of Nature, they can have no place in our intercourse with the 
Father whom Jesus represents. It needs only that Christ 
be truly his image, to know “ that the liinderance is not with 
him, but entirely in ourselves ”; * to see that there is no 
anger in his look; to feel that he invites us to unreserved 
confession, and accepts • our self-abandonment to him, — that 
he lifts the repentant, prostrate at his feet, and speaks the 
words of severe, but truest hope. Am I told, “that only 
the gratitude excited by personal rescue from tremendous 
danger, by an unconditional and entire deliverance, is capable 
of winning our reluctant nature, of opening the soul to the 
access of the Divine Spirit, and bringing it to the service of 
the Everlasting Will ” ? I rejoice to acknowledge, that some 
such disinterested power must be awakened, some mighty 
forces of the heart be called out, ere the regeneration can 
take place that renders us children of the Highest; ere we 
can break, with true new birth, from the shell of self, and 
try and train our wings in the atmosphere of God. The 
permanent work of duty must be wrought by the affections; 
not by the constraint, however solemn, of hope and fear; no 
self-perfectionating process, elaborated by an anxious will, 
has warmth enough to ripen the soul’s diviner fruits; the 
walks of outward morality, and the slopes of deliberate medi¬ 
tation, it may keep smooth and trim; but cannot make the 
true life-blossoms set, as in a garden of the Lord, and the 
foliage wave as with the voice of God among the trees. I 
gladly admit that, to a believer in the vicarious sacrifice, the 


* Mr. M'Neile’s Lecture, p. 338. 



SCHEME OF VICARIOUS REDEMPTION. 


145 


sense of pardon, the love of the Great Deliverer, may well 
fulfil this blessed office, of carrying him out of himself in 
genuine allegiance to a being most benign and boly. And 
perceiving that, if this doctrine were removed, there is not, 
in the system of which it forms a part , and which else would 
be all terror, anything that could perform the same generous 
part, I can understand why it seems to its advocates an 
essential power in the renovation of the character. But 
great as it may be, within the limits of its own narrow 
scheme, ideas possessed of higher moral efficacy are not 
wanting, when we pass into a region of nobler and more 
Christian thought. Shall we say that the view of the Infinite 
Ruler, given in the spoken wisdom or the living spirit of 
Christ, has no sanctifying power ? Yet where is there any 
trace in it of the satisfactionist’s redemption ? When we sit 
at Messiah’s feet, that transforming gratitude for an extin¬ 
guished penalty, on which the prevailing theology insists, as 
its central emotion, becomes replaced by a similar and pro¬ 
founder sentiment towards the Eternal Father. If to rescue 
men from a dreadful fate in the future be a just title to our 
reverence, never to have designed that fate claims an affec¬ 
tion yet more devoted ; if there be a divine mercy in annihi¬ 
lating an awful curse, in shedding only blessing there is surely 
a diviner still. Shall the love restored to us after long delay, 
and in consideration of an equivalent, work mightily on the 
heart, — and shall that which asked no purchase, which has 
been veiled by no cloud, which has enfolded us always in its 
tranquillity, nor can ever quit the soul opened to receive it, 
fail to penetrate the conscience, and dissolve the frosts of our 
self-love by some holier flame ? Never shall it be found true, 
that God must threaten us with vengeance, ere we can feel 
the shelter of his grace ! 

In truth, the Christian idea of salvation cannot be better 
illustrated, than by the doubt which has been entertained 
respecting the proper translation of my text. Some, refer¬ 
ring it to spiritual redemption, adhere to the common ver¬ 
sion ; others, seeing that the Apostle Peter is explaining “ by 
13 


146 


SCHEME OE VICARIOUS REDEMPTION. 


wliat power or by what name ” he had cured the lame man 
at the temple gate, refer the words to this miracle of deliver¬ 
ance, and render them thus : “ Neither is there healing in any 
other; for there is none other name under heaven given 
among men, whereby we can be healed” It matters little 
which it is; for whether we speak of body or of mind, Jesus 
u saves ” us by u making us whole ”; by putting forth upon 
us a divine and healing power, by which past suffering and 
present decrepitude disappear together; which supplies the 
defective elements of our nature, cools the burning of inward 
fever, or calls into being new senses and perceptions, open¬ 
ing a diviner universe to our experience. The deformed and 
crooked will, bowed by Satan, lo! these many ) r ears, and no¬ 
wise able to lift up itself, he loosens and makes straight in 
uprightness. The moral paralytic, collapsed and prostrate 
amid the stir of life, and incapably gazing on the moving 
waters in which others find their health, has often started up 
at the summons of that voice, though perchance “ he wist not 
who it was ” ; and, going his way, has found it to be “ the 
sabbath,” and owned the “ work ” of one who is in the spirit 
of “ the Father.” From the eye long dark and blind to duty 
and to God, he has caused the film to pass away, and shown 
the solemn look of life beneath a heaven so tranquil and 
sublime. Even the dead of soul, close wrapped in bandages of 
selfishness, — that greediest of graves,—have been quickened 
by his piercing call, and have come forth, to learn, “ when 
risen,” that only in the meekness that can obey is there the 
power to command, only in the love that serves is there the 
life of heart-felt liberty. To call, then, on the name and trust 
in the spirit of Christ, is to invoke the restoring power of God; 
to give symmetry and speed to our lame affections, and the 
vigor of an athlete to our limping wills. There is not any 
Christian salvation that is not thus identical with Christian 
; perfection: “ nor any other name under heaven given among 
men, whereby we may be (thus) made whole” Let all that 
would “ be perfect be thus minded ” ; seek “ the measure of 
the stature of the fulness of Christ ” ; and they shall find in 
him a “ power to become the sons of God.” 


MEDIATORIAL RELIGION. 


The Nature of the Atonement , and its Relation to Remission 

of Sins and Eternal Life. By John M‘Leod Campbell. 

Cambridge: Macmillan & Co. 185C. 

This is a strange book. A Greek would have hated it. 
A Puritan would have found it savory, even where it -was un¬ 
sound. Rosenkranz, who has written on the AEsthetih des 
Hdsslichen , would have been thankful for such a fund of illus¬ 
tration. Cumbrous, tiresome, monotonous, it has few attrac¬ 
tions for the natural man, who may have a weakness in favor 
of pure English and nice grammar. It despises the graces of 
carnal literature, and treats all the color and music of lan¬ 
guage as the Roundheads treated a cathedral, silencing the 
“box of whistles” and smashing the “mighty big angels in 
glass.” And yet, if you can get over its grating way of de¬ 
livering itself, you will find it no barbaric product, but the 
utterance of a deep and practised thinker, charged with the 
richest experiences of the Christian life, and resolute to clear 
them from every tangle of fiction or pretence. Beneath the 
uncouth form there is not only severe truth, but great tender¬ 
ness and beauty, — a fine apprehension of the real inner strife 
of tempted men, and an intense faith in an open way of es¬ 
cape from it, without compromise of any sanctity. The author, 
though not tuneful in his speech, has the gifts of a true proph¬ 
et ; and often enables one to fancy what Isaiah might have 



148 


MEDIATORIAL RELIGION. 


been if be had heard nothing but the bagpipe, and had set his 
“ burdens ” to its drone. Whether Mr. Campbell’s style has 
been formed north of the Tweed, we know not. In any case, 
it is trained in the school of Calvinism; is untouched there¬ 
fore by any feeling for art; and runs on with a sort of ex¬ 
temporaneous habit, insufficiently relieved by occasional flashes 
of grotesque and forcible expression. It is only in exterior 
aspect, however, that he presents the features of the rugged 
old Calvinism: and though the first-born of that system and 
its younger sons are distinguished like Isaac’s children, “ Esau 
is a hairy man, and Jacob is a smooth man,” yet no true pa¬ 
triarch of the school can be so blind as not to see beneath our 
author’s goat-skin dress, and know that he is other than the 
heir. In fact, the peculiarity of this work as a theological 
phenomenon is, that it is a destruction of Calvinism without 
any revolt from it, — an escape from it through its own in¬ 
terior. Its postulates are not denied. Its phraseology is not 
rejected. Its statement of the problem of redemption is in 
the main accepted. Its provision for the solution, — the In¬ 
carnation of the Son, — is sacredly preserved. Yet these 
elements are put into such play as to make it checkmate itself 
on its own area. Its definitions are shown to be suicidal; and 
its sharp-edged logic is used to cut through the ligaments that 
constrain and shape it. 

We have spoken first of the style of this book, because it 
strikes the reader at the outset, and is not unlikely to repel 
him if he is not warned. Of one other feature, derived from 
the same school, we must say a word, to qualify the admiration 
and gratitude which we shall then ungrudgingly tender to the 
author. In common with all the great masters of the “ Evan¬ 
gelical” school, he is too much at home with the Divine econ¬ 
omy ; knows too well how the same thing appears from the 
finite and the infinite point of view; can tell too surely how 
a mixed nature, both divine and human, would feel on look¬ 
ing from both ends at once; and altogether goes with too 
close a search to the “ secret place of the Most High.” Not 
that he speaks unworthily on these high themes; we have 


MEDIATORIAL RELIGION. 


149 


nothing truer to suggest, except more silence. But we must 
confess that when a teacher lays down the conditions of divine 
possibility, expatiates psychologically on the sentiments of the 
Father and the Son, and seems as though he had been al¬ 
lowed a peep into the autobiography of God, we shrink from 
the sharp outlines, and feel that we shall believe more if we 
are shown less. With so many soundings taken, and so many 
channels buoyed, the sense of the shoreless sea is gone, and 
we find only a port of traffic, with coast-lights instead of stars. 
The temptation to this theological map-making has always 
proved peculiarly strong among the disciples of Geneva: and 
the reason is to be found in the very nature of the problem 
they have attempted to resolve. Religion has two foci to de¬ 
termine, — the divine nature and the human. Athanasius and 
the Greek influence fixed the doctrine of the Godhead: Au¬ 
gustine and the Latin Church defined the spiritual state of 
man. The one, it has been said, produced a theology; the 
other, an anthropology. In the construction of the former, it 
is obvious that the appeal could be made only to positive au¬ 
thority, whether of Scripture or the Church. On the Nicene 
question no one could pretend to have personal insight or 
scientific data: it must be decided by arbitrary vote on im¬ 
pressions of testimony. But for establishing a doctrine of 
humanity, the living resources of consciousness and experience 
were present with perpetual witness; every proposition ad¬ 
vanced could be confronted with its corresponding reality: 
the disciple could not help carrying the dogma inward to the 
test of his self-knowledge. The scheme of the Trinity partook 
of the nature of a Gnosis , which dwelt apart from the stir of 
phenomena, and, having once set and crystallized, could only 
be hung up for preservation. The dogmas of human deprav¬ 
ity and helplessness partook of the nature of a Science , com¬ 
ing in contact with the facts of life and character at every 
point. Moral experience had something to say to them: and 
unless they could keep good terms with it, they could not 
hope to hold their ground. Hence the Augustinian divines 
have been constrained to seek a philosophy of religion, and 
13 * 


150 


MEDIATORIAL RELIGION. 


to collate the text of their Scriptural system with the running 
paraphrase of actual life. No writers have contributed so 
much to lay bare the inmost springs of human action and 
emotion; have tracked with so much subtilty the windings 
of guilty self-deception, or so found the secret sorrow that 
lies at the core of every unconsecrated joy. If we must con¬ 
cede to the Roman Catholic casuists and the problems of the 
confessional the merit of creating an ethical Art embodied in 
systems of rules, we owe to the deeper Evangelical spirit, 
whether in its action or its reaction, the ground-lines of an eth¬ 
ical Philosophy; — or, if you deny that such a thing as yet 
exists, at least the true idea and undying quest of it. The 
disciples of Augustine, belonging to an anthropological school, 
have been naturally distinguished by a reflective and psycho¬ 
logic habit. 

If it was the function of the Greek period to settle the doc¬ 
trine of God, and of its Latin successor to define the nature 
of man, it was the aim of the Reformation, leaving these two 
extremes undisturbed, to find the way of mediation between 
them. So long as the great sacerdotal Church, living continu- 
ator of Christ’s presence, was intrusted with the business, pri¬ 
vate Christians wanted no theory on the subject; all nice 
questions went into the ecclesiastical closet and disappeared. 
But as soon as ever the hierarchy fell out of this position, 
there was an immense void left to be filled. On the one 
hand, Infinite Holiness, quite alienated; on the other, Human 
Pravity, quite helpless: how was any approximation to be 
rendered conceivable ? True, the great original Mediation on 
Calvary, which the papal priesthood pretended to prolong, re¬ 
mained ; for it was fixed in history. But it lay a great way 
off, a fact in the old past; and its intervention was required 
to-day by Melancthon, and Carlstadt, and a whole generation 
quite remote from it. How was its power to be fetched into 
the present? how applied to men walking about in Witten¬ 
berg or Zurich ? This was the problem which flew open by 
the cancelling of the Romish credentials: and the various an¬ 
swers to it constitute the body of Protestant theology. In 


MEDIATORIAL RELIGION. 


151 


one point they all agree, that, to replace the priestly media 
that are thrust out, Personal Faith is the element that must 
be brought in. In what way this subjective state of the indi¬ 
vidual mind draws or appropriates the efficacy of the Incar¬ 
nation ; in what order the redeeming process runs among the 
three given terms, — the alienated Father, the mediating Son, 
the believing disciple; whether any part of the process is 
moral and real, or all is legal and virtual; — these are ques¬ 
tions which the Reformation has found it easier to open than 
to close. But answer them as you will, they entangle your 
thoughts in the mutual relations and sentiments of three per¬ 
sons ; and cannot be discussed without establishing some prin¬ 
ciples of moral psychology, as the common grounds of inter¬ 
communion between minds finite and infinite, and dealing with. 
hypothetical problems of divine as well as human casuistry. 
Hence the inevitable tendency of the doctrine of Mediation 
to venture on a natural history of the Divine Mind, — to con¬ 
struct a drama of Providence and Grace, with plot too artful¬ 
ly wrought for the free hand of Heaven, and traits too spe¬ 
cific and minute for reverent contemplation. 

It is deeply instructive to ob.. erve the pulsation of religious 
thought in men. Revealed religion is ever passing into natu¬ 
ral, and natural returning to re-interpret the revealed. We 
can almost see the steps by which sacred history was convert¬ 
ed into dogma; while dogma, assumed in turn as the starting- 
point, is ever producing new readings of the history. This 
world may be regarded as a human theatre , where the Wills 
of men perform the parts ; or as the stage of Divine agency , 
using the visible actors as the executants of an invisible 
thought. Its vicissitudes, presented in the former aspect, 
yield only history; in the latter, give rise to doctrine. No¬ 
ticed by Tacitus, the life of Christ is a provincial incident of 
Tiberius’s reign, and his death a judicial act of Pontius Pi¬ 
late’s government. In the three first Gospels and the book of 
Acts, the crucifixion is still the act of wicked or misguided 
men, inflicted on an expostulating victim; not, however, with¬ 
out being foreseen as the appointed precursor of a resurrec- 


152 


MEDIATORIAL RELIGION. 


tion. The event is thus in the main simply historical; but 
with a divine comment which gives it an incipient theological 
significance. It appears under another aspect in the Gospel 
of John; there, Christ not only foresaw, but determined his 
own death: his life “no man taketh it from him,” but he “ lays 
it down of himself”; he is not merely the submissive medi¬ 
um, but the spontaneous co-agent of a Divine intent. Final¬ 
ly, in St. Paul, — to whom the person and ministry of Christ 
were unfamiliar, who, as a disciple of his heavenly life, looked 
back upon them from a higher point, — the historical aspect 
almost wholly disappears in the ideal; and the cross becomes 
the Gospel, the wisdom of God and the power of God, the 
self-sacrifice of the Son the reconciling way to the Father, the 
very focus and symbol of all the mystery and mercy com¬ 
prised in humanity. The movement of thought through these 
successive stages is obvious. An event is at first accepted as 
it arises. But in proportion as its concrete impression retires, 
the need becomes more urgent to find its function: instinctive 
search is made for all those elements, accessories, and effects 
of it, which promise to bring out its meaning and idea, until 
at last its doctrine absorbs itself, and enters the human mind 
as a permanent factor of positive religion. It is thus that 
the great antitheses, of Law and Gospel, of the Natural and 
the Spiritual man, of dead Works and living Faith, of self- 
seeking enmity and self-surrendering reconciliation with God, 
have settled upon the consciousness of Christendom, and 
grown into the very substance of its experience. They have 
become part of its natural religion. But in this character 
they may, conversely, be taken as the initiative of a new ver¬ 
sion of the history whence they sprung. They could not be 
born into unmixed and formed existence at once; but, like all 
new affections, must feel their way out of an early indetermi¬ 
nate state, into clear self-apprehension and settled purity. 
The testimony of the Christian conscience needs time to be¬ 
come articulate and collected. The shadow of human guilt 
may lie so dark upon the mind, the dawn of the divine holi¬ 
ness may so dazzle the inward vision, that blindness in part 


MEDIATORIAL RELIGION. 


153 


may linger for a while; and the eye, in very opening to 
Christ’s healing touch, may fail to see. Once accustomed to 
the new light of life, men are no longer occupied with it alone, 
but find in it a medium for truer discernment of objects 
around. The special sentiments awakened by the Gospel test 
themselves afresh, like any other theory, by being fully lived 
out, and tried as experiments upon the soul. The type of 
character, — the edition of human nature, — in which they 
take embodiment, becomes a distinct object of critical appre¬ 
ciation ; and while all its deep expressive traits speak for the 
inner truth whence they are moulded, every mixture of dis¬ 
harmony or defect calls for some revision of idea. In the 
thirsty spiritual state to which men were reduced on the eve 
of the Reformation, they drank up with intense eagerness the 
most turbid supplies of evangelical doctrine. With purer 
health and finer perception they become aware that not all 
was water of life; and that coarse notions of the nature of 
justice, the conditions of mercy, and the measurement of sin, 
w r ere intermixed and must become mere sediment. Cleared 
of these, the theory is taken back to the facts of revelation, 
and so washed through them, that they may also emerge as 
from a sprinkling of regeneration. Through such re-baptism 
does our author, furnished with a purified conception of 
u atonement,” pass the history of Christ. 

In looking for the whereabouts of the atonement, we are 
guided, as in search for the pole-star, by two pointers whose 
indications we are to follow. Its function was double, — to 
cancel a guilty past, to make a holy future: and it must be 
of such a nature as to disappoint neither of these conditions. 
In determining its form, the great anxiety of theologians hith¬ 
erto has been to fit it for its retrospective action, and disembar¬ 
rass the problem of salvation of the burden of accumulated 
sin. It is Mr. Campbell’s distinction that he lays the superior 
stress on its prospective action, and requires that it shall pos¬ 
itively heal the sickness of our nature, and evolve thence a 
real and living righteousness. God’s moral perfectness could 
be satisfied with nothing less. If, indeed, He looked on our 


154 


MEDIATORIAL RELIGION. 


guilt merely as an obstacle to our u salvation,” and desired to 
remove it as a hinderance out of the way, — if He rather 
sought a pretext for making us happy than a provision for 
drawing us to goodness, — then the work of Christ might be 
so devised as simply to tear out the defiled page of the past, 
and register an infinite credit not our own, without inherent 
care for ulterior personal holiness. But were it so, the divine 
love would amount only to an unrighteous desire for our hap¬ 
piness, and the divine righteousness to an unloving repulsion 
from our sin. Such spurious analysis corresponds with no 
reality; and in the truth of things there can be no heavenly 
affection that is not holy, nor any holiness that is not affect 
tionate. 

“ While in reference to the not uncommon way of regard-, 
ing this subject which represents righteousness and holiness 
as opposed to the sinner’s salvation, and mercy and love as on 
his side, I freely concede that all the Divine attributes were, 
in one view, against the sinner, in that they called for the due 
expression of God’s wrath against sin in the history of re¬ 
demption : I believe, on the other hand, that the justice, the 
righteousness, the holiness of God, have an aspect according 
to which they, as well as his mercy, appear as intercessors for 
man, and crave his salvation. Justice may be contemplated 
as according to sin its due; and there is in righteousness, as 
we are conscious to it, what testifies that sin should be miser¬ 
able. But justice , looking at the sinner not simply as the fit 
subject of punishment, but as existing in a moral condition of 
unrighteousness, and so its own opposite, must desire that the 
sinner should cease to be in that condition; should cease to be 
unrighteous, should become righteous : righteousness in God 
craving for righteousness in man, with a craving which the 
realization of righteousness in man alone can satisfy. So also 
of holiness. In one view it repels the sinner, and would ban¬ 
ish him to outer darkness, because of its repugnance to sin. 
In another, it is pained by the continued existence of sin and 
unholiness, and must desire that the sinner should cease to be 
sinful. So that the sinner, conceived of as awakening to the 


MEDIATORIAL RELIGION. 


155 


consciousness of his own evil state, and saying to himself, 4 By 
sin I have destroyed myself. Is there yet hope for me in 
God ? ’ — should hear an encouraging answer, not only from 
the love and mercy of God, but also from his very righteous¬ 
ness and holiness. We must not forget, in considering the 
response that is in conscience to the charge of sin and guilt, 
that, though the fears which accompany that response are 
partly the effect of a dawning of light, they also in part arise 
from remaining darkness. He who is able to interpret the 
voice of God within him truly, and with full spiritual intelli¬ 
gence will be found saying, not only, 4 There is to me cause 
for fear in the righteousness and holiness of God,’ but also, 
4 There is room for hope for me in the Divine righteousness 
and holiness/ And when gathering consolation from the med¬ 
itation of the name of the Lord, that consolation will be not 
only, 4 Surely the Divine mercy desires to see me happy rath¬ 
er than miserable,’ but also, 4 Surely the Divine righteousness 
desires to see me righteous, — the Divine holiness desires to 
see me holy, — my continuing unrighteous and unholy is as 
grieving to God’s righteousness and holiness as my misery 
through sin is to his pity and love.’ 4 Good and righteous is 
the Lord, therefore will he teach sinners the way which they 
should choose.’ 4 A just God and a Saviour ’; not as the 
harmony of a seeming opposition, but 4 a Saviour, because a 
just God.’ ” — p. 29. 

From this justly-conceived passage the characteristics of 
Mr. Campbell’s theory may already be divined. He sets his 
faith on a concrete, living, indivisible God, whom you can 
never understand by laying out His abstract attributes one by 
one, with their separate requirements, and then putting them 
together again to compute the resultant. He insists on the 
absolute dominance of' a moral and spiritual idea throughout 
the revealed economy : of this nature is the evil to be met, — 
sin and estrangement; of this nature is the good to be reached, 
— righteousness and reconciliation; and only of this nature 
can be the mediation which effects the change; related up¬ 
ward to the Father and downward to men, in a way accordant 


156 


MEDIATORIAL RELIGION. 


with (lie laws of conscience, and intelligible by its self-light. 
He craves, therefore, a natural juncture, a real causal nexus, 
between the several parts of the process, to the exclusion of 
all forensic fictions and arbitrary scene-shifting and sovereign 
tours-de-force. In short, he will have no tricks passed off, no 
^Mast-transformations upon the conscience ; he feels the moral 
world to be above the range of mere miracle; any change in 
it irreducible to its solemn laws would ipso facto fall out of 
it and become a mere dynamical surprise. Of physical mir¬ 
acle our author avails himself to the full amount; the incar¬ 
nation of the Son of God being, with him, as with others, the 
central fact and essential medium of Christian redemption. 
But the august power thus SMjoernaturally set up — the Per¬ 
son at once divine and human — works out his great problem 
naturally , without requiring the suspension of one rule of 
right, or holding any magical dealings with the character of God 
or man. His problem, therefore, is to show how the life and 
death of Christ — considered as God in humanity — were fit¬ 
ted, and alone fitted, to blot out the sins of the world before 
God, and to introduce among men a new state of real right¬ 
eousness and eternal life. 

The common Evangelical scheme of redemption so far af¬ 
fects to be deduced from certain general principles, and to 
render the way of redemption conceivable , that it is stigma¬ 
tized as rationalistic by Catholics and Anglicans. It is so, 
however, only in the sense of hanging well together, and 
serving the purpose of a theological Mnemonic to those who 
want a religion ready more than deep. In the higher sense, 
of occupying any natural ground pf reason, it does not earn 
its reproach. The propositions >vhich it Jays down, as to the 
inability of a holy nature tq forgive pnless pircuitously and 
with compensation, and as tq the commutability of either pe¬ 
nal liabilities or moral attributes, are without any support froin 
our primary sentiments pf right and wrong, and could be car r 
ried out by no sane man in the conduct of life. The doctrine 
is taught in two principal forms ; — the earlier and more ex¬ 
act scheme of “ Satisfaction” elaborated by Anselm of Can- 


MEDIATORIAL RELIGION. 


157 


terbur j f and perfected by Owen and Edwards ; and the mod¬ 
ern theory of “Public Justice” maintained in the writings of 
Dr. Pye Smith and Dr. Payne, and prevailing wherever the 
first decadence from the old Calvinism is going on. The first 
of these prepares its ground by laying down these principles 
as fundamental; — that the connection between sin and suf¬ 
fering is inviolably secured on the veracity of God; that 
“ when we have done all, we are unprofitable servants,” and 
have only rendered our strict due; that, far from “ doing all,” 
we have done and can do nothing, except accumulate guilt, 
which, measure it as you will, — by the majesty of the au¬ 
thority defied, or the multitude of the offenders and their sins, 
— is practically of infinite amount. Here, then, is a case of 
utter despair: infinite debt; nothing to pay; remission impos¬ 
sible ; punishment eternal; death unattainable. But we are 
brought into the labyrinth on one side, to emerge from it 
on the other. While men can only multiply demerit, there 
are natures conceivable to which merit is possible. A Divine 
Person, laying aside a blessedness inherently his, and assum¬ 
ing sorrow not his own, and doing this out of a pure love, ful¬ 
fils the conditions; and when the Son takes on him our 
humanity, the act, carried out unto the end, has a merit in it 
which in amount is a full set-off against the guilt of men. 
Still, this only leaves us with two opposite funds — of infinite 
good desert and infinite ill desert — which sit apart and unre¬ 
lated. In due course, the one ought to have a boundless re¬ 
ward, the other a boundless punishment. But to render his 
affluence available for our debt, the Son consummates his self- 
sacrifice, substitutes himself for us as the object of retribution, 
and dies once for all, — one infinite death for many finite here¬ 
afters of woe. The Father’s justice is satisfied; the allot¬ 
ment of suffering to sin has been accurately observed; His 
desire to pardon is released from its restraint. Having dealt - 
with the person of the Son as if it were mankind, He may 
deal with mankind as if they were the Son, and look upon 
them as clothed with a perfect obedience. 

The wholly artificial structure of this scheme, which is its 

14 


158 


MEDIATORIAL RELIGION. 


greatest condemnation, lias been its chief security. It is by 
approaching within conducting-distance of reality, that a doc¬ 
trine elicits resistance and meets the stroke of natural objec¬ 
tion ; and if it only keeps far enough aloft in the metaphysic 
atmosphere, it may float along unarrested from zone to zone 
of time. Men know not what to make of propositions so 
much out of their sphere, so evasive of any real encounter 
with their consciousness, and are apt to let them pass for their 
very strangeness’ sake. But surely we are bound to demand 
for them some “ response of conscience,” and, with Mr. Camp¬ 
bell, to demur to such of them as will not bear this test. Lim¬ 
iting ourselves to the mediatorial part of the theory, we will 
assume the problem of moral evil to be correctly stated, and 
only ask whether, from the supposed case of despair, the 
offered solution affords any real exit of relief. Nor do we 
assume this for argument’s sake alone. We can perfectly 
understand any remorseful sense, however deep, of human 
unworthiness ; any appreciative reverence, however intense, 
of Christ’s self-sacrifice. Set the one under the shadow of 
the Father’s infinite disapproval, the other in the light of His 
infinite complacency; so far we go; there let them lie. But 
what next ? Here, on the left hand, is Sin with its need of 
punishment; there, on the right, a perfect Holiness with its 
merits. While they are thus spread beneath the Father’s 
eye, they break up their inviolable alliances; each moral 
cause crosses over and takes the opposite effect. If such 
change took place, the seat of the fact must be sought partly 
in the consciousness of Christ, partly in the Father’s view of 
things. In reference to the first, must we say that the Cruci¬ 
fied felt himself under Divine wrath and punishment, and 
esteemed that wrath to be just ,—=-the fitting expression of his 
own inward remorse ? If so, can we aflirm that his conscious¬ 
ness was veracious ? or did he not feel, in regard to others ’ 
sins, sentiments and experiences that are false except in rela¬ 
tion to one’s own ? And, ascending to the other point of view, 
shall we affirm that the Father saw sin in the Son and was 
angry with him; so that, in the hour of sublimest obedience, 


MEDIATORIAL RELIGION. 


159 


the words ceased to be true, “ Thou art my beloved Son, in 
whom I am well pleased”? And on the other hand, what is 
meant when it is said that beneath the Divine eye men in 
their guilt are seen “ clothed with ” a perfect righteousness? 
Is such an aspect of them true ? or is it akin to an ocular de¬ 
ception? We seem to be reduced to this dilemma; — the 
change of apparent moral place implied in “ imputation ” is 
either a faithful representation, or a ^wcm-representation, of 
the reality of things. If the latter, then the Divine con¬ 
sciousness is illusory, and the world is administered on a fic¬ 
tion ; if the former, then the moral law, in assuring us of the 
personal and inalienable nature of sin, gives a false report, 
and there is nothing to prevent a circulating medium of merit 
from passing current through the universe. Mr. Campbell’s 
deference for the great advocates of this marvellous doctrine 
does not obstruct his perception of its difficulties. 

“ I freely confess,” he says, “ that to my own mind it is a 
relief, not only intellectually, but also morally and spiritually, 
to see that there is no foundation for the conceptions that 
when Christ suffered for us, the just for the unjust, he suffered 
either ‘as by imputation unjust,’ or ‘as if he were unjust.’ 
I admit that intellectually it is a relief not to be called to con¬ 
ceive to myself a double consciousness, both in the Father 
and in the Son, such as seems implied in the Father’s seeing 
the Son at one and the same time, though it were but for a 
moment, as the well-beloved Son, to whom infinite favor should 
go forth, and also as worthy, in respect of the imputation 
of our sins to him, of being the object of infinite wrath, he 
being the object of such wrath accordingly; and in the Son’s 
knowing himself the well-beloved of the Father, and yet 
having the consciousness of being personally, through impu¬ 
tation of our sin, the object of the Father’s wrath. I feel it 
intellectually a relief neither to be called to conceive this, nor 
to assume it as an unconceived mystery. Still more do I feel 
it morally and spiritually a relief, not to be required to recog¬ 
nize legal fictions as having a place in this high region, in 
which the awful realities of sin and holiness, spiritual death 


ICO 


MEDIATORIAL RELIGION. 


and spiritual life, are the objects of a transaction between the 
Father and the Son in the Eternal Spirit.” — p. 310. 

The second form of mediatorial doctrine, to which we have 
referred as the modern type of Calvinism, has arisen from the 
endeavor to evade some of these perplexities. The riddle 
that haunts its teachers is still the same, — how it can become 
possible to show mercy to sinners; but the difficulty in the 
way is differently conceived, and therefore met by a different 
expedient. It is not an obstacle in God, arising from his per¬ 
sonal sentiment of equity, which must be satisfied; but springs 
out of the necessity of consistent rectitude, and adherence to 
law in his administrative government. The Father himself, 
it is intimated, would be quite willing to forgive, were there 
nothing to consult except his own disposition. But it would 
never do to play fast and loose with the criminal law of the 
universe, and, notwithstanding the most solemn enactments, 
let off delinquents on mere repentance, as if nothing were the 
matter beyond a personal affront. Something more is due to 
Public Justice. If the due course of retribution is to be 
turned aside, it must be in such a way and at such a cost as 
to proclaim aloud the awfulness of the guilt remitted. This, 
we are told, is accomplished by the sufferings and death of the 
Son of God, which were substituted for our threatened pun¬ 
ishment, not as its quantitative equal paid to the Father, but 
as a moral equivalent in the eyes of men. Their validity is 
thus conceived to depend by no means on their particular 
measure, but on the meritorious obedience of love which was 
their sustaining and animating soul, and which, being on the 
scale of a Divine nature, gave infinite value to the smallest 
sorrow. Within the casket of his grief was held such a price¬ 
less righteousness, that, on beholding it, the Father might re¬ 
gard it as an adequate plea for acts of mercy to sinners. He 
does not indeed impute to them the actual moral perfectness 
of Christ, so as to see them invested with it, any more than 
he imputed to Christ their guilt, and frowned on Calvary. It 
is the effects only of that holiness which he imputes; he offers 
to men the benefits of it, without reckoning it as really theirs, 


MEDIATORIAL RELIGION. 


161 


and giving them the legal standing which its possession would 
bestow. 

No doubt this scheme gets rid of the penal mensuration and 
moral conveyancing of the older Calvinism. It shifts also the 
bar to free mercy away from the inner personality of God, 
and sets it in his outer government. But when we again at¬ 
tempt to seize the mediatorial expedient , what is it? It is 
said to be a display of the enormity of that guilt which needs 
to be redeemed at such a cost. But is that need real ? Have 
we not been told that it has no place in God ? Does he then 
hang out a profession that is not true to the kernel of things, 
but only a show-off for impression’s sake ? If Eternal Justice 
in its inner essence does not require the expiation provided, 
why in its outer manifestation pretend that it does? As 
nothing can become right for “the sake of good example” 
that is not right in itself, so is “ Public Justice,” unsustained 
by the sincere heart of reality, a mere dramatic imposture. 
Mr. Campbell has supplied us with a forcible statement of 
this truth: — 

“ Surely rectoral or public justice, if it is to have any moral 
basis, — any basis other than expediency, — must rest upon, 
^nd refer to, distributive or absolute justice. In other words, 
unless there be a rightness in connecting sin with misery, and 
righteousness with blessedness, looking at individual cases 
simply in themselves, I cannot see that there is a rightness in 
connecting them as a rule of moral government. ‘ An English 
judge once said to a criminal before him: You are condemned 
to be transported, not because you have stolen these goods, 
but that goods may not be stolen.’ ( Jenkyns , 175, 176.) This 
is quoted in illustration of the position, that ‘the death of 
Christ is an honorable ground for remitting punishment,’ be¬ 
cause ‘ his sufferings answer the same ends as the punishment 
of the sinner.’ I do not recognize any harmony between this 
sentiment of the English judge and the voice of an awakened 
conscience on the subject of sin. It is just because he has 
sinned and deserves punishment, and not because he says to 
himself that God is a moral governor, and must punish him 
14 * 


1G2 


MEDIATORIAL RELIGION. 


to deter others, that the wrath of God against sin seems so 
terrible, — and as just as terrible.” — p. 79. 

Even were the expression backed up by reality, we cannot 
but ask about the fitness of the medium for the thought to be 
conveyed. God’s horror at guilt is publicly proclaimed by the 
most awful crime in human history ! To explain the difficulty 
of letting off the offender, he exhibits the anguish of the inno¬ 
cent! The spectacle would seem in danger of suggesting the 
wrong lesson to the terrified observer, — of raising to intensity 
the doubt whether, in a world that gives its silver to a Judas, 
its judgment-seat to a Pilate, and the cross to the Son of God, 
any Providence can care for rectitude at all. Even when 
the death of Christ is contemplated exclusively as a ^//’-sac¬ 
rifice, without remembering the guilt which compassed it, we 
are at a loss to understand how it could be “ an honorable 
ground for remitting punishment.” What difference did it 
make in the previous reasons of the Divine government, so 
that penalties right before should be less right afterwards? 
If Catiline were undergoing his just retribution at the date 
of the Last Supper, what plea was there for releasing him at 
or before the date of the resurrection ? That obedience ren¬ 
dered and suffering endured by one soul should dispense with 
the liabilities of another, is a supposition at variance with the 
personal and inalienable nature of all sin; and to say that 
God “ imputes the effects ” of Christ’s* holiness to those who 
are not partakers in the cause, is to accuse the Divine gov¬ 
ernment of total disregard to character and evasion of moral 
reality. The old Calvinism represents the Father as having 
an illusory 'perception of men, as if they were clad in a divine 
righteousness. The new Calvinism represents him as having 
indeed a true perception of their unrighteousness, but, notwith¬ 
standing this, falsifying the truth in action , and proceeding as 
if the facts were quite other than they are. Inasmuch as un- 
veracious vision is intellectual, while unveracious practice is 
moral, the younger doctrine appears to us a positive degrada¬ 
tion of the elder, not only in logical completeness, but in re¬ 
ligious worth. Both of them make the redeeming economy 


MEDIATORIAL RELIGION. 


1G3 


proceed upon njiction ; but there is all the difference between 
unconscious and conscious fiction; between an inner 44 satis¬ 
faction” brought about by an optical displacement of merit, 
and an outward 44 exhibition ” set up for the sake of impres¬ 
sion. The theory of Owen, stern as it is, bears the stamp of 
resolute meaning consistently carried through into the inmost 
recess of the Divine nature. The newer doctrine is the pro¬ 
duction of a platform age, which obtrudes considerations of 
effect even into its thoughts of God and his government, and 
can scarce refrain from turning the universe itself into a thea¬ 
tre for rhetorical pathos and ad captandum display. 

With good reason, therefore, does our author feel that this 
whole subject is in need of reconsideration. His own doctrine 
diverges from its predecessors at a very early point, and is 
seen at its source in the following proposition of Edwards, as 
cited by Mr. Campbell: — 

44 In contending that sin must be punished with an infinite 
punishment, President Edwards says, 4 that God could not be 
just to himself without this vindication, unless there could be 
such a thing as a repentance, humiliation, and sorrow for this 
(viz. sin) proportionable to the greatness of the Majesty de¬ 
spised,’ — for that there must needs be 4 either an equivalent 
punishment, or an equivalent sorrow and repentance ’; 4 so,’ he 
proceeds, 4 sin must be punished with an infinite punishment ’; 
thus assuming that the alternative of 4 an equivalent sorrow 
and repentance * was out of the question. But, upon the as¬ 
sumption of that identification of himself with those whom he 
came to save, on the part of the Saviour, which is the founda¬ 
tion of Edwards’s whole system, it may at the least be said, 
that the Mediator had the two alternatives open to his choice, 
— either to endure for sinners an equivalent punishment, or 
to experience in reference to their sin, and present to God on 
their behalf, an adequate sorrow and repentance. Either of 
these courses should be regarded by Edwards as equally se¬ 
curing the vindication of the majesty and justice of God in 
pardoning sin.” — p. 136. 

The side of the alternative which Edwards abandoned, our 


1G4 


MEDIATORIAL RELIGION. 


author takes up and follows out. The work of Christ, as a 
ground of remission, consisted in the offering on behalf of 
humanity of an adequate repentance. Adequate it could not 
have been but for his Divine nature; which attaches to his 
holy sorrow an infinite moral value, to balance the infinite 
heinousness of the. sin deplored. The only reason why hu¬ 
man penitence does not in itself avail to restore, lies in its im¬ 
perfect purity and depth. Through the cloud of evil, and 
with the eye of self, we are disqualified for true discernment 
of sin as it is: both the limits of a finite nature, and the delu¬ 
sions of a tempted and fallen one, hinder us from appreciat¬ 
ing the measure of our guilt and misery. Even when our 
better mind reasserts itself, our very compunction carries in 
it many a speck of ill, and our repentance needs to be repent¬ 
ed of. But were it not for this, there would be “ more aton¬ 
ing worth in one tear of the true and perfect sorrow which 
the memory of the past would awaken,” “ than in endless ages 
of penal woe.” It is not the inefficacy, but the impossibility, 
of due penitence that constitutes our fatal disability; to be re¬ 
lieved from which we need to be taken out of ourselves, to be 
identified with a perfect spirit; our humanity must cease to 
be human, and become one with the Divine nature. This is 
precisely the condition which realized itself in Christ. As 
God in humanity, he had perfect sympathy with the holiness 
of one sphere, and the infirmities of the other; he saw the 
whole amount of the world’s moral estrangement, not only, 
with infinite pity for its misery, but with infinite horror at its 
guilt. He could both make a plenary confession for us, and 
respond unreservedly to the Father’s righteous judgment; 
could bear our burden on his heart before heaven, and utter 
the Miserere of holy sorrow, which our most plaintive cry can 
never approach. This is the true nature of his sufferings, 
lie “made his soul an offering for sin,” yielded it up to be 
filled with a sense of our real aspect beneath the Omniscient 
eye, and an Amen to its condemning look. Hence his sor¬ 
rows had nothing penal in them, any more than the tears of a 
devout parent over a prodigal child are penal. They are 


MEDIATORIAL RELIGION. 


1C5 


incident to that attitude of soul which a perfect nature cannot 
but have in the presence of a brother’s sin. They are alto¬ 
gether moral and spiritual; and their efficacy as an expiation 
is that of true .repentance; expressing at once our entire con¬ 
fession, acceptance of the Father’s just displeasure, and sym¬ 
pathy with his compassionate grieving at our alienation. 

At the same time, this mere retrospective confession would 
not of itself avail, were there no better hope for the future of 
mankind. But our Mediator’s own experience in humanity, 
his consciousness of intimate peace and communion with the 
Father, opened to him the other side of our nature, assured 
him of its secret capacity for good, and filled him with hope 
in the very moment of contrition. As his sympathy could 
have fellowship with our temptations, so could ours have fel¬ 
lowship with his righteousness; and the light of Divine love 
that rested actually on himself was thereby a possibility for 
the universal human soul, and was already hovering round 
with longing to descend. It was on the strength of this as¬ 
surance that his intercession on our behalf was presented; it 
would never have pleaded for indemnity in relation to the 
past, but' as the prelude to a real righteousness, a true partner¬ 
ship in his life of filial harmony with God. The validity of 
his transaction on our behalf consisted in its perfect seizure 
of the whole reality, its entire “ response to the mind of the 
Father in relation to men”; sorrow for their estrangement, 
conviction of their possible return, and desire to draw them 
into the spirit of genuine Sonship. 

It w r as needful, then, — so we conceive our author’s mean¬ 
ing, — that the sentiments of God towards the world’s sin and 
misery should quit their absolute position, and should come 
and take their station in humanity; and from that field should 
turn their gaze and expression upward to meet the Father’s 
downward and accordant look. As this “Amen of the Son 
to the mind of the Father” constitutes the essence of the 
atonement on the Divine side, so does it consist on the human 
side in “ the Amen of each individual soul to the Amen of 
the Son.” The reproduction in us of the filial spirit of 


166 


MEDIATORIAL RELIGION. 


Christ, — his confession, his pleading, his trust, — is our fel¬ 
lowship with him and reconciliation with God. 

“ This is saving faith, — true righteousness, — being the 
living action, and true and right movement of the spirit of the 
individual man in the light of eternal life. And the certainty 
that God has accepted that perfect and divine Amen as ut¬ 
tered by Christ in humanity is necessarily accompanied by 
the peaceful assurance that, in uttering, in whatever feeble¬ 
ness, a true Amen to that high Amen, the individual who is 
yielding himself to the spirit of Christ to have it uttered in 
him is accepted of God. This Amen in man is the due 
response to that word, * Be ye reconciled to God ’; for the 
gracious and Gospel character of which word, as the tenderest 
pleading that can be addressed to the most sin-burdened spirit, 
I have contended above. This Amen is sonship ; for the Gos¬ 
pel call, c Be ye reconciled to God/ when heard in the light 
of the knowledge that ‘ God made him to be sin for us who 
knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God 
in him/ is understood to be the call to each one of us on the 
part of the Father of our spirits, ‘ My son, give me thine 
heart/ addressed to us on the ground of that work by which 
the Son had declared the Father’s name, that the love where¬ 
with the Father hath loved him may be in us, and he in us. 
In the light itself of that Amen to the mind of the Father in 
relation to man which shines to us in the atonement, we see 
the righteousness of God in accepting the atonement , and in 
that same light the Amen of the individual human spirit to 
that divine Amen of the Stm of God is seen to be what the 
Divine righteousness will necessarily acknowledge as the end 
of the atonement accomplished .”— p. 225. 

In this view, it is not the rescue from punishment, not any 
favorable change in our legal standing, not any imputed right¬ 
eousness, that Christ’s mediation obtains, but a real transfor¬ 
mation of soul and character through the divine infection and 
infusion of his own filial spirit. Only in so far as his mind 
thus spreads to us are we united to him, or in any way par¬ 
takers of his gift of life. Personal alienation can have no 


MEDIATORIAL RELIGION. 


167 


reversal but in personal return; nor can anything “ extra¬ 
neous to the nature of the Divine will itself, to which we are 
to be reconciled, have part in reconciling us to that will.” 
The fear of hell is not repentance ; the assurance of heaven 
is not salvation; nor under any modification can the desire 
of safety, or the consciousness of its attainment, constitute the 
least approach to holiness. The good alone can touch the 
springs of goodness ; and the divine and trustful life of Christ 
must speak to us on its own account, and win us by its own 
power, or not at all. Not that it acts on us merely in the 
way of example. We do not so stand apart from him in our 
independent individuality, that by an external imitation we 
can copy him, and become, as it were, each another Christ, 
repeating in ourselves his offering of propitiation. lie is the 
Yine, of which we are the branches. The sap is from him, 
drawn through the eternal root of righteousness, and does but 
flow as a derived life into us. The Son of God is not a mere 
historical personage, to be contemplated at a distance in the 
past, but ever with us in the power of an endless life; still 
succoring us when we are tempted, and ministering to con¬ 
science a present help and peace. It is not, therefore, by 
following him, but by abiding in him, that we have our fel¬ 
lowship in his harmony with God. 

The essence, then, of the scheme of redemption, in the 
view of our author, seems to be this: that the Divine nature 
entered humanity to open the Fatherliness of God by living 
the life of perfect Sonship; and that, having awakened that 
life in us by this its visible realization, he sustains it by the 
inner presence of his Spirit. It is one of the obvious conse¬ 
quences of this doctrine, that no exclusive or exceptional value 
is to be ascribed to the death of Christ. It is simply the final 
and crowning expression of the same filial mind which is the 
continuous essence of his whole -existence upon earth. Nor 
does the theory attach importance to any sufferings of Christ, 
as such; but only as media and measures of moral expression. 
Had men sinned as spirits, his reconciling work would not 
have involved death at all: but since in our constitution mor- 


168 


MEDIATORIAL RELIGION. 


tality is “ the wages of sin,” his response to the Divine mind 
in regard to sin would have been incomplete, had he not 
honored this law and tasted its realization. Not to lose sight 
of the main features of the doctrine in pursuit of details, we 
must pass without notice many curious and subtle thoughts of 
our author on this part of his subject. Indeed, everywhere 
the reader who has patience with the entangled style will find 
deep hints and delicate turns of reflection. But we must 
withdraw to a little distance from his system, and endeavor to 
look at it as a whole; fixing attention especially on the central 
point of all, — the mediatorial provision , which replaces the 
penal “ satisfaction ” of the elder Calvinism, and the “ exhi¬ 
bition of rectoral justice ” of the modern divines. 

Instead of an infinite punishment endured or represented, 
the theory offers us an infinite repentance performed. Repent¬ 
ance for what ? — for human sin. Repentance by whom ? — 
by Him “ who knew no sin.” Is this a thing that can be ? Is 
vicarious contrition at all more conceivable than vicarious 
retribution? It is surely one and the same difficulty that 
meets them both. On what ground is the transfer of either 
moral qualities or their effects regarded by our author as 
impossible ? — because at variance with our consciousness of 
the personal and inalienable nature of sin. But not less is 
this truth contradicted when we say that the guilt may be 
incurred by one person, and the availing repentance take 
place in another. Nor can any imagination of Christ’s state 
of mind identify it with penitence. Mr. Campbell himself 
describes it (p. 135) as having “all the elements of a perfect 
repentance in humanity for all the sin of man — a perfect 
sorrow — a perfect contrition, — all the elements of such a 
repentance, and that in absolute perfection — all — excepting 
the personal consciousness of sin.” This exception, however, 
contains just the essential element of the whole. Penitence 
without any personal consciousness of sin is a contradiction in 
terms; and the requisition of the Divine law is, that the sinner 
shall turn from the evil of his heart, not that the righteous 
shall make confession for him. The entire moral value of 


MEDIATORIAL RELIGION. 


169 


contrition belongs to it as the sign of inner change of char¬ 
acter from prior evil to succeeding good; and it admits of no 
transplantation from the identical personality which has been 
the seat of the evil and is the candidate for the good. 

Further, it seems a paradox to say, with our author, that 
true repentance is impossible to man, who alone needs it; and 
can be realized only by the Son of God, in whom there is no 
room for it. It would indeed be a hopeless realm to live in, 
which should annex to all sins both an imperative demand 
and an absolute disqualification for adequate contrition, and first 
open the fountain of availing tears in holy natures that have 
none to shed. It is, in truth, of the very essence of repent¬ 
ance to have its seat in mixed and imperfect moral beings : 
and our author lays upon it quite an arbitrary requisition, 
when he insists that, to pass as adequate, it must contain a 
perfect appreciation of the sin deplored, — a view of it coinci¬ 
dent with that of God. Under such an aspect as this it could 
never have appeared to us, though we had remained guiltless 
of it, and recoiled from it: and we can hardly be required to 
reach, in the rebound of recovery, a point beyond the station 
which would have prevented the fall. Many errors in theol¬ 
ogy arise from applying absolute conceptions to relative con¬ 
ditions, and forgetting that religion, as realized in us, is a life, 
a movement, a progress, and not an ultimate limit of perfec¬ 
tion. Repentance is a transitional state, to which it is absurd 
to apply an infinite criterion: it is a change from the worse to 
the better mind, and cannot need the resources or belong to 
the experience of the best. To pronounce it impossible to 
the wandering and fallen, and make it the exclusive function 
of the All-holy, implies the strangest metamorphosis of its 
meaning. 

But how, it may be asked, could a paradox so violent find 
favor with an author everywhere intent on the exclusion of 
fiction from Christian theology ? To refer a moral act to 
the wrong personality , to toss about a solemn change like 
penitence between guilty and innocent, as if its particular seat 
were a matter of indifference, is so serious an error, that it 
15 


170 


MEDIATORIAL RELIGION. 


could never enter a mind like Mr. Campbell’s, unless under 
some plausible disguise. Can we find the shape under which 
it has recommended itself to his approval ? 

The sentiment ascribed to the Son of God in regard to 
sin, — wanting as it does the essential penitential element of 
personal compunction, — is simple sorrow for others’ guilt, 
founded on perfect apprehension of its nature. But this 
attitude of soul in him awakens the conscience of his disci¬ 
ples, and is reproduced in them by fellowship. Spread into 
their consciousness, it is no longer clear of the immediate 
presence of sin, but, falling in with it, assumes the missing 
element, and becomes repentance. When the Christian sense 
of evil, which ever partakes of true contrition, is thus contem¬ 
plated as a transmigration of the Mediator’s own spirit into 
the soul, the two are so identified in thought, that what is true 
only of the human effect is referred to the Divine cause; and 
the moral sorrow of Christ is regarded as potentially equiva¬ 
lent to repentance, because that is actually the form of the 
corresponding phenomenon in us. If this, however, explains 
our author’s position, it hardly justifies it. Intercession for 
others in their guilt may move them to remorse for their own, 
but is a fact of quite different nature. As attributes and ex¬ 
pressions of character, the two phenomena are not to be con¬ 
founded ; and as affecting our relation to God, there is the 
obvious and admitted distinction, that intercession avails not 
for those who remain impenitent, and would not be needed for 
the spontaneously penitent. The sorrowful expostulations 
of the Son of God have only so far a reconciling effect as 
they become the medium, in the hearts of men, of an awak¬ 
ened contrition, aspiration, and faith. We cannot conceive 
them to have immediately altered — as repentance does — 
the personal relation between God and the transgressors of 
His will; else the change would be a change in the Divine 
sentiment whilst its objects still remained unchanged. The 
effect waits for its development in souls melted and renewed. 
And thus the atoning sorrow of Christ becomes simply a 
provision for a healing penitence in men. 


MEDIATORIAL RELIGION. 


171 


The ascription of u repentance ” to Christ is curious in 
another point of view. It arises from a blending together of 
his consciousness and his disciples’; from slurring the lines of 
personality between them ; from regarding their spiritual 
state as an organic extension of his, and his as the vital root 
of theirs. In his endeavor to recommend it to us, our author 
instinctively runs into abstract expressions in speaking of 
mankind ; fusing down concrete men into “ humanity ”; re¬ 
ferring to the Mediator as “ God in humanity ” ; and so, deal¬ 
ing with our nature as if it were a single existence, carrying 
or turning up all its individuals as partial phenomena of one 
essence. On the other hand, in our endeavor to correct his 
doctrine, we have had to lay stress on the inalienable and 
separate character of all particular persons, taken one by 
one; to insist on the solitude of each responsible agent, and 
the impassable barriers which forbid the transference of moral 
attributes from mind to mind. Which of these two modes of 
conception is the truer? For according as w r e incline to the 
one or the other, — according as we treat humanity as the 
organic unit of which individual samples of mankind are nu¬ 
merical accidents, or take each man as an integer, of which 
the race is a multiple, — shall we lean towards mediatorial 
or towards direct religion. We are firmly convinced that no 
doctrine of mediation — in the strict sense implying trans¬ 
actions with God on behalf of men, as well as in the opposite 
direction — can be harmonized with the modern individual¬ 
ism ; and that it is precisely in the attempt to unite these in¬ 
compatibles, that the forensic fictions to which Mr. Campbell 
objects, and the moral fiction in his own theory to which we 
object, have had their origin. They are mere artificial devices 
to compensate the loss of that realistic mode of conception in 
which alone a true atoning doctrine can rest in peace. So 
long as you contemplate the Redeemer as a detached person, 
not less insulated in his integrity of being than angel from 
archangel or from man, the difficulty will remain insuperable 
of making his moral acts avail for other human individuals , 
unless by a fictitious transference, against which conscience 


172 


MEDIATORIAL RELIGION. 


protests. Punishment by substitute, righteousness by deputy, 
vicarious repentance, are notions at variance with the funda¬ 
mental postulates of the Moral Sense: and in the attempt to 
defend them we are liable to lose the solemn, living, face-to- 
face reality of the strife within us, and to weave around us a 
web of legal and formal relations, as little like any heart-felt 
veracity as a chancery decree to a law of nature. In pro¬ 
portion as the soul is pierced with a sharper contrition, and 
attains a deeper and clearer insight into her own unfaithful dis¬ 
order, will the inherent impossibility of any foreign exchange 
of righteousness become apparent, and the desire to be shielded 
from punishment will pass away: nor is the conscience truly 
awakened which does not rather rush into the arms of its just 
anguish than start back and fly away. And the more you 
hold up to view the holiness of Christ, the darker will the 
personal past appear to grow; for self-reproach will say: 
“ Yes, I see him as the holy Son of God; the guiltier am I 
that the vision did not keep me from my sin.” Talk to such 
a one of Christ’s transactions on our behalf, as “federal head” 
of a redeemed people ; and his misery will take no notice of 
the cold pretence, unless to think, “ Whatever engagements 
he made for me, I have broken them all.” In short, while 
Christ is regarded simply as an historical individual, with the 
chasm of an incommunicable personality between him and us, 
no ingenuity can construct, except from the ruins of moral 
law, any other bridge of mediation than the suasion of natural 
reverence, by which his image passes into the heart of faith. 

It is otherwise when we break through the restraints of the 
modern individualism, and strive to enter into that literal 
identification of Christ with Christians which is so frequent 
with St. Paul. If, instead of saying that Christ had our 
human nature, we could put our thought into this form,— 
“He was (and is) our human nature,” — if we could suppose 
our type of being not merely represented in him as a sample, 
but concentrated in him as a whole, — we should read its 
essentials and destination in his biography: his predicates 
would be its predicates: and in his sorrows and sanctity it 


MEDIATORIAL RELIGION. 


173 


might undergo purification. Humanity thus made into a 
person would then be the corresponding fact to Deity em¬ 
bodied in a person : both would be Incarnations , — essential 
Manhood and essential Godhead, — co-present in the same 
manifested life. In the ordinary conception of the doctrine 
of two natures, Christ is represented, we believe, as a man; 
in the mode of thought to which we now refer, he appears as 
Man. The difficulties which arise in the attempt to carry out 
this form of thinking are evident enough, even to those who 
know nothing of the Parmenides of Plato. Indeed, they are 
rendered so obtrusive by our modern habits of mind, that 
even a momentary seizure, for mere purposes of interpreta¬ 
tion, of that older intellectual posture, scarcely remains possi¬ 
ble to us. The apprehension of it, however, is indispensable 
to one who would appreciate the mediatorial theology of 
Christendom, — a theology which never could have sprung up 
if our present conceptualist and nominalist notions had always 
prevailed, and which, ever since their ascendency in Europe, 
has been driven to deplorable shifts of self-justification. The 
parallel between the first and second Adam, the fall and the 
restoration, the death incurred and the life recovered, acquire 
new meaning for those who thus think, — that as the incidents 
of Adam’s existence become generic by descent , so the inci¬ 
dents of Christ’s existence are generic by diffusion; that if 
in the one w r e see humanity at head-quarters in time , in the 
other we see it at head-quarters in comprehension; so that, 
like an atmosphere which, purified at nucleus, has the taint 
drawn off from its margin, our nature is freed from its sickli¬ 
ness in him. It becomes intelligible to us in what sense we 
are to take refuge in him as our including term, to find in 
him an epitome of our true existence, to die (even to have 
died) with him, to suffer with him, to be risen with him, to 
dwell above in him. On the assumption of such a union, his 
life ceases to be an individual biography; what is manifested 
in him personally, becomes true of us-universally ; and it is as 
if we were all — like special examples in a general rule, or 
undeveloped truths in a parent principle — virtually present 
15* 


174 


MEDIATORIAL RELIGION. 


in his dealings with evil and with God. It is evident, that in 
this view his mediation has no chasm to cross, no foreign 
region to enter, but is an inseparable predicate of his own 
personal acts. The facility of conception afforded by this 
method is betrayed by Mr. Campbell’s resort to an analogous 
hypothesis as a mere illustrative help to the mind. Witness 
the following striking passage : — 

“ That we may fully realize what manner of equivalent to 
the dishonor done to the law and name of God by sin an 
adequate repentance and sorrow for sin must be, and how far 
more truly than any penal infliction such repentance and con¬ 
fession must satisfy Divine justice, let us suppose that all the 
sin of humanity has been committed by one human spirit, on 
whom is accumulated this immeasurable amount of guilt; and 
let us suppose this spirit, loaded with all this guilt, to pass out 
of sin into holiness, and to become filled with the light of God, 
becoming perfectly righteous with God’s own righteousness, — 
such a change, were such a change possible, would imply in 
the spirit so changed a perfect condemnation of the past of its 
own existence, and an absolute and perfect repentance, a con¬ 
fession of its sin commensurate with its evil. If the sense of 
personal identity remained, it must be so. Now, let us con¬ 
template this repentance with reference to the guilt of such a 
spirit, and the question of pardon for its past sin and admis¬ 
sion now to the light of God’s favor. Shall this repentance 
be accepted as an atonement, and, the past sin being thus con¬ 
fessed, shall the Divine favor flow out on that present perfect 
righteousness which thus condemns the past, or shall that 
repentance be declared inadequate ? Shall the present perfect 
righteousness be rejected on account of the past sin, so abso¬ 
lutely and perfectly repented of? and shall Divine justice still 
demand adequate punishment for the past sin, and refuse to 
the present righteousness adequate acknowledgment, — the 
favor which, in respect of its own nature, belongs to it ? It 
appears to me impossible to give any but one answer to these 
questions. We feel that such a repentance as we are suppos¬ 
ing would, in such a case, be the true and proper satisfaction 


MEDIATORIAL RELIGION. 


175 


to offended justice. Now, with the difference of personal 
identity, the case I have supposed is the actual case of Christ, 
the holy one of God, bearing the sins of all men on his spirit, 
— in Luther’s words, ‘ the one sinner,’ — and meeting the cry 
of these sins for judgment, and the wrath due to them, absorb¬ 
ing and exhausting that Divine wrath in that adequate con¬ 
fession and perfect response on the part of man which was 
possible only to the infinite and eternal righteousness in hu¬ 
manity:” — p. 143. 

The case which our author here presents as an aid to the 
imagination was to Luther the literal reality ; to whom, ac¬ 
cordingly, Christ was “ the one sinner,” without “ the differ¬ 
ence of personal identity,” which is here so innocently slipped 
in, as if it were of no consequence. Christ, in the Reformer’s 
view, was humanity, our humanity ; and the grand function 
and triumph of faith is to feel ourselves included in him, to 
merge our individuality, sins and all, in his comprehending 
manhood and atoning obedience. Hence the stress which 
Luther lays on “ the well-applying the pronoun ” our , in the 
phrase, “ who gave himself for our sins ” ; “ that this one 
syllable being believed may swallow up all thy sins.” The 
effect of this realism on the theology of Luther has not been 
sufficiently remarked. We believe it to be the key to much 
that is obscure in his writings, and the secret source of his 
antipathy to the Calvinistic type of the Reformation. Ab¬ 
sorption of Manhood into Christ, — distribution of Godhead 
into humanity, — these were the correlative parts of his objec¬ 
tive belief, — Atonement and Eucharistic Real Presence : and 
neither in themselves nor in their correspondence can they be 
appreciated, without standing with him at the point of view 
which we have endeavored to indicate. 

Whether mediatorial religion shall continue to include in its 
scheme some provision for dealing with God on behalf of men , 
will mainly depend on the successful revival or the final aban¬ 
donment of the old realistic modes of thought. Mr. Camp¬ 
bell’s compromise with them, taking refuge with them for 
illustration while disowning them in substance, answers no 


176 


MEDIATORIAL RELIGION. 


logical or theological purpose at all. If he follows out the 
natural tendencies and affinities of his faith, he must rest 
exclusively at last in the other half of the doctrine, which 
exhibits the dealing with man on behalf of God. In this best 
sense mediatorial religion is imperishable, and imperishably 
identified with Christianity. The Son of God, at once above 
our life and in our life, morally divine and circumstantially 
human, mediates for us between the self so hard to escape, 
and the Infinite so hopeless to reach ; and draws us out of our 
mournful darkness without losing us in excess of light. He 
opens to us the moral and spiritual mysteries of our existence, 
appealing to a consciousness in us that was asleep before. 
And though he leaves whole worlds of thought approachable 
only by silent wonder, yet his own walk of heavenly com¬ 
munion, his words of grace and works of power, his strife of 
divine sorrow, his cross of self-sacrifice, his reappearance 
behind the veil of life eternal, fix on him such holy trust and 
love, that, where we are denied the assurance of knowledge, 
we attain the repose of faith. 


FIVE POINTS OF CHRISTIAN FAITH. 


It is at all times difficult, even for the wisest, to describe 
aright the tendencies of the age in which they live, and lay 
down its bearings on the great chart of human affairs. Our 
own sensations can give us no notice whither we are going; 
and the infinite life-stream on which we ride, restless as it is 
with the surface-waves of innumerable events, reports noth¬ 
ing of the mighty current that sweeps us on, except by faint 
and silent intimations legible only to the skilled interpreter of 
heaven. It is something, however, to have the feeling that 
we are moving , and to be awake and looking out; and perhaps 
there never was a period in which this consciousness was 
more diffused throughout society than in our own. No one 
can look up and around at the religious and social phenomena 
of Christendom, without the persuasion that we are entering 
a new hemisphere of the world’s history, — a persuasion cor¬ 
roborated even by those who disclaim it, and who insist on 
still steering by lights of tradition now sinking into the mists 
of the receding horizon. Wherever we turn our eye, we dis¬ 
cover some symptom of an impending revolution in the forms 
of Christian faith. The gross materialism and absolute unbe¬ 
lief diffused for the first time among vast masses of our popu¬ 
lation; the fast-spreading (and, as it appears to us, morbid) 
dislike to look steadily at anything miraculous ; the extensive 
renunciation, even among the religious classes on the Continent, 
of historical Christianity; the schisms and ever-new peculiar- 



173 


FIVE POINTS OF CHRISTIAN FAITH. 


ities which arc weakening all sects, and, like seedlings of the 
Reformation, are obscuring the species, by multiplying the va¬ 
rieties, of opinion ; the revived controversies, penetrating all 
the great political questions of the age, between the ecclesi¬ 
astical and civil powers,—-are not the only indications of 
approaching theological change. That very conservatism 
and recoil upon the high doctrine of an elder time, which is 
manifest in every section of the Christian world, is a confes¬ 
sion by contrast of the same thing. For opinion does not 
turn round and retreat into the past, till it has lost its natural 
shelter in the present, and dreads some merciless storm in the 
future. The outward strength which the older churches of 
our country seem to be acquiring arises from the rallying of 
alarm and the herding together of trembling sympathies; and 
though fear may unite men against external assaults upon in¬ 
stitutions, it cannot stop the decay of inward doubt. It would 
seem as if Christianity was threatened by the mental activity 
which it has itself created; as if the intellectual weapons 
which have been forged and tempered by its skill were treach¬ 
erously turned against its life. It is vain, however, to strike 
a power that is immortal; nothing will fall but the bodily 
form cast for a season around the imperishable spirit. 

Protestantism, with all its blessings, has after all greatly 
disfigured Christianity, by constructing it into a rigid meta¬ 
physical form, and setting it up on a narrow pedestal of anti¬ 
quarian proof; — by destroying its infinite character through 
definitions, and developing it dogmatically rather than spiritu¬ 
ally;— by treating it, not as an ideal glory around the life of 
man, but a logical incision into the psychology of God. The 
wreck of systems framed under this false conception will but 
leave the pure spirit of our religion in the enjoyment of a 
more sacred homage; — you may dash the image, but you 
cannot touch the god. 

In the following remarks we shall seek to make this evi¬ 
dent ; — to show what principles of religion in general, and of 
Christianity in particular, may be pronounced safe from the 
shocks of doubt. In times of consternation and uncertainty, 


FIVE POINTS OF CHRISTIAN FAITH. 


170 


it behooves each one to look within him for the heart of cour- 
age, and around him for the place of shelter, and to single 
out, amid countless points of danger, some refuge immutable 
and eternal. With this view, we propose to trace an outline 
of Christian truths which we consider secure and durable as 
our very nature; — a chain of granite points rising, like the 
rock of ages, above the shifting seas of human opinion. In 
doing so, we shall be simply delineating Unitarian Christian¬ 
ity, according to our conception of it; — expounding it, not as 
a baTren negation, but as a scheme of positive religion; ex¬ 
hibiting both its characteristic faiths, and something of the 
modes of thought by which they are reached. 

I. In the first place, We have faith in the Moral Per¬ 
ceptions ofi Man. The conscience with which he is endowed 
enables him to appreciate the distinction between right and 
•wrong; to understand the meaning of “ought,” and “ought 
not to love and revere whatever is great and excellent in 
character, to abhor the mean and base; and to feel that in the 
contrast between these we have the highest order of differen¬ 
ces by which mind can be separated from mind. And on this 
consciousness, — the basis of our whole responsible existence, 
— no suspicion is to be cast; no lamentation over its fallibil¬ 
ity, no hint of possible delusion, is to pass unrebuked; it is 
worthy of absolute reliance as the authoritative oracle of our 
nature, supreme over all its faculties, — entitled to use sense, 
memory, understanding, to register its decrees, without a mo¬ 
ment’s license to dispute them. That Justice, Mercy, and 
Truth are good and venerable, is no matter of doubtful opin¬ 
ion, in which peradventure an error may be hid; — is not 
even a thing of certain inference, recommended to us by the 
forqe of evidence; — is not an empirical judgment, depending 
on the pleasurableness of these qualities, and capable of re¬ 
versal, if, under some tyrant sway, they were to be rendered 
sources of misery. The approval which we award to them is 
quite distinct from assent to a scientific probability; the ex¬ 
cellence which we ascribe to them is not identical with their 


180 


FIVE FOINTS OF CHRISTIAN FAITH. 


command of happiness, but altogether transcends this, pre¬ 
cedes it, and survives it; the obligation they lay upon us is 
not the consequence of positive law, human or divine, or in 
any way the creature of superior will; for all free-will must 
itself possess a moral quality, — can never stir without exer¬ 
cising it, — and cannot therefore give rise to that which is a 
prior condition of its own activity. And if (to pursue the 
thought suggested above) we could be snatched away to some 
distant world, some out-province of the universe, abandoned 
by God’s blessed sway to the absolutism of demons, where 
selfishness and sensuality, and hate and falsehood, were pro¬ 
tected and enjoined by public law, it is clear that, by such 
emigration, our interests only, and not our duties, would be 
reversed; and that to rebel and perish were nobler than to 
comply and live. The discernment of moral distinctions, 
then, belongs to the very highest order of certainties; it has 
its seat in our deepest reason, among the primitive strata of 
thought, on which the depositions of knowledge, and the accu¬ 
mulations of judgment, and the surface growths of opinion, all 
repose. As experience in the past, has not taught it, experi¬ 
ence in the future cannot unteach it. The difference between 
good and evil we cannot conceive to be merely relative, and 
incidental to our point of view, — variable with the locality 
and the class in which a being happens to rest, — an optical 
caprice of the atmosphere in which we live; — but rather a 
property of the very light itself, found everywhere out of the 
region of absolute night; or, at least, a natural impression, 
belonging to that perceptive eye of the soul, through which 
alone we can look out, as through a glass, upon all beings and 
all worlds; and if any one will say that the glass is colored, it 
is, at all events, the tint of nature, shed on it by the inefface¬ 
able art of the Creator. The modes in which we think of 
moral qualities are not terrestrial peculiarities of idea, like 
foreign prejudices; the terms in which we speak of them are 
not untranslatable provincial idioms, vulgarities of our plan¬ 
etary dialect, but are familiar, like the symbols of a divine 
science, to every tribe pf souls, belonging to the language of 


FIVE POINTS OF CHRISTIAN FAITH. 


181 


the universe, and standing defined in the vocabulary of God. 
The laws of right are more necessarily universal than the 
physical laws of force; and if the same agency of gravitation 
that governs the rain-drop determines the evolutions of the 
sky, and the Principia of Newton would be no less intelligible 
and true on the ring of Saturn than in the libraries of this 
earth, — yet more certain is it that the principles of moral 
excellence, truly expounded for the smallest sphere of respon¬ 
sibility, hold good, by mere extension, for the largest, and that 
those sentiments of conscience which may give order and 
beauty to the life of a child, constitute the blessedness of 
immortals, and penetrate the administration of God. This is 
what we intend, when we insist on implicit faith in the moral 
perceptions of man. They are to be assumed by us as the 
fixed station, the grand heliocentric position, whence our sur¬ 
vey of the spiritual universe must be made, and our system 
of religion constructed. Whatever else may move, here, as 
in creation’s centre of gravity, we take our everlasting stand. 
Whatever else be doubtful, these are to be simply trusted. 
The force of certainty by which nature and God give them to 
the conscience exceeds any by which, either through the un¬ 
derstanding or through external supernatural communication, 
they might seem to be drawn away. No revelation could per¬ 
suade me that what I revere as just, and good, and holy, is 
not venerable , any more than it could convince me that the 
midnight heavens are not sublime. 

There is nothing to move us from this position, in the ob¬ 
jection, that different men have different ideas of right and 
wrong, and that the heroic deeds of one latitude are regarded 
as the crimes of another. This moral discrepancy is, in the 
first place, infinitely small in proportion to the moral agree¬ 
ment of mankind, so that it is even difficult to find many 
striking examples of it; and when the subject is mentioned, 
everybody expects to hear the self-immolation of the Indian 
widow, and other superstitions of the Ganges, adduced as the 
standing illustrations. What, after all, are these eccentricities 
of the moral sense, compared with the scale of its common 
16 


182 


FIVE POINTS OF CHRISTIAN FAITH. 


consent? As well might you deny the existence of an at¬ 
mosphere, because you have found the air exhausted from a 
pump! Where is the nation or the individual, without the rudi¬ 
ments, however imperfectly unfolded, of the same great ideas 
of duty which we possess ourselves ? — where the language, 
in which there are no terms to denote good and evil, — the 
just, the brave, the merciful ? — where the tribe so barbarous 
as not to listen, with earnest eye, to the story of the good 
Samaritan ? And if such there were, should we not call 
them a people but little human (inhuman), and deem them, 
not the specimens, but the outlaws of our nature ? Moreover, 
the variances of moral judgment are usually only apparent 
and external. The action which one man pronounces wrong 
and another right, is not the same, except upon the lips : 
enter the minds of the two disputants, and you will find that 
it is only half taken into the view of each, and presents to 
them its opposite hemispheres ; no wonder that it shows the 
darkness of guilt to the one, and the sunshine of virtue to the 
other. And accordingly, these differences actually vanish as 
the faculty of conscience unfolds itself, and the scope of the 
mind is enlarged. Like the discrepancies in the ideas which 
men have of beauty, they exist principally between the un¬ 
cultivated and the refined: and the well-developed percep¬ 
tions of the best in all ages and countries visibly agree. Nay, 
while yet the discordance lasts, it introduces no real doubt: 
for heaven has established a moral subordination among men, 
which reveals the real truth of our own nature. Do we not 
always see, that the lower conscience bows before the higher; 
— that the heart, without light or heat itself, may be pierced, 
as with a flash, by a sentiment darted from a loftier soul, and 
own it to be from above; — that, simply by this natural 
allegiance of the lesser to the nobler, classes and nations 
and sects are raised in dignity and moral greatness ; — that 
they, and they only, have had any grand and sublime exist¬ 
ence in the history of the world, who have been gifted with 
power to create a new religion, — a fresh development of 
what is holy and divine; — and that everyone so endowed 


FIVE POINTS OF CHRISTIAN FAITH. 


183 


has always gathered around him the multitudes ever praying 
to be lifted above the level of their life, and blessing the 
benefactor who wakes up the consciousness of their higher 
nature ? And if so, the general direction of the moral senti¬ 
ment is the same, however its intensity may vary: and the 
irregular indications which it gives are not due to any inherent 
vacillation, but to the disturbing causes which deflect it from 
the celestial line of simplicity and truth. 

We keep our foot, then, on this primitive foundation,— 
faith in the moral perceptions of man. We say, that we 
know what we mean, when we affirm that a being is just, 
pure, disinterested, merciful; that these terms describe one 
particular kind of character, and one only; that they have 
the same sense to whomsoever they are applied, and are not 
to be juggled with, so as to denote quite opposite forms of 
action and disposition, according as our discourse may be of 
heaven or of earth; that whenever they lose their ordinary 
and intelligible signification, they become senseless; and that 
what would be wrong and odious in any one moral agent, 
can be, under similar relations, right and lovely in no 
other. These positions, which we take to be fundamental, 
are in direct contradiction to the theological maxims with 
which most churches begin ; — viz. that human nature is so 
depraved that its conscience has lost its discernment, sees 
evervthing through a corrupted medium, and deserves no 
trust; that it may surrender its convictions to anything 
which can bring fair historical evidence of its being a revela¬ 
tion ; — in other words, that it may be right to throw away 
our ideas of right, and, in obedience to antiquarian witnesses, 
suppose it holy in God to design and execute a scheme 
which it w T ould be a crime in man to imitate. These prin¬ 
ciples are defended by the assertion, that the relations of 
the Divine and the human being are so different as to de¬ 
stroy all the analogies of character between them. The only 
tendency, both of this defence and of the principles them¬ 
selves, is to absolute scepticism ; — to atheistical scepticism , 
inasmuch as our propositions respecting God, if not true in 


184 


FIVE POINTS OF CHRISTIAN FAITH. 


the plain human sense, are to us true in no other, and repre¬ 
sent nothing ; to moral scepticism , inasmuch as, the sentiments 
of conscience being exposed to distrust, and all its language 
rendered unsettled, the very ground on which human char¬ 
acter must plant itself is loosened; the rock of duty melts 
into water beneath our feet, and we are cast into the waves 
of impulse and caprice. 

II. We have Faith in the Moral Perfection of God, This 
indeed is a plain consequence of our reliance on the natural 
sentiments of duty For it is not, we apprehend, by our 
logical, but by our moral faculty, that we have our knowledge 
of God ; and he who most confides in the instructor will learn 
the sacred lesson best. That one whom we may call the 
Holiest rules the universe, is no discovery made by the in¬ 
tellect in its excursions, but a revelation found by the con¬ 
science on retiring into itself; and though we may reason 
in defence of this great truth, and these reasonings, when 
constructed, may look convincing enough, they are not, we 
conceive, the source, but rather the effect, of our belief, — 
not the forethought which actually precedes and introduces 
the Faith, but the afterthought by which Faith seeks to make 
a friend and an intimate of the understanding. Does any 
one hesitate to admit this, and think that our conceptions 
of the Divine character are inferences regularly drawn from 
observation, — not indeed observation on the mere physical 
arrangements, but on the moral phenomena, of our world,— 
from the traces of a regard to character in the administration 
of human life ? We will not at present dispute the conclu¬ 
sion; but, observing that the premises which furnish it are 
certain moral experiences, we remark that the very power of 
receiving and appreciating these, of knowing what they are 
worth, belongs not to our scientific faculty, but to our sense of 
justice and of right. On a being destitute of this they would 
make no impression; and in precise proportion to the intensity 
of this feeling will be the vividness and force of their per¬ 
suasion. And is it not plain in fact , that it is far from being 


FIVE POINTS OF CHRISTIAN FAITH. 


185 


the clear and acute intellect, but rather the pure and trans¬ 
parent heart, that best discerns God ? How many strong and 
sagacious judgments, of coolest capacity for the just estimate 
of argument, never attain to any deep conviction of a perfect 
Deity! Nay, how much does scepticism on this great matter 
seem to be proportioned, not to the obtuseness, but rather to 
the subtlety and searchingness of the mere understanding? 
But when was it ever known that the singularly pure and 
simple heart, the earnest and aspiring conscience, the lofty 
and disinterested soul, had no faith in the “ First fair and 
the First good ” ? Philosophy at its ease, apart from the 
real responsibilities and strong battle of life, loses its diviner 
sympathies, and lapses into the scrupulosity of doubt, and 
from the centre of comfort weeps over the miseries of earth, 
and the questionable benevolence of heaven; while the prac¬ 
tically tried and struggling, with moral force growing beneath 
the pressure of crushing toil, look up with a refreshing trust, 
and with worn and bleeding feet pant happily along to the 
abodes of everlasting love. The moral victor, flushed with 
triumph over temptation, feels that God is on his side, and 
that the spirit of the universe is in sympathy with his joy. 
Never did any one spend himself in the service of man, and 
yet despair of the benignity of God. Our faith, then, in the 
Divine perfection, forms and disengages itself from the deeps 
of conscience: and the Holiest that broods over us solemnly 
r i ses — the awful spirit of eternity — from the ocean of our 
moral nature. 

It is in conformity with this doctrine of the moral origin 
of our belief in the first principles of religion, that to every 
man his God is his best and highest , the embodiment of that 
which the believer himself conceives to be the greatest. The 
image which he forms of that Being may indeed be gross and 
terrible; and others may be shocked, and exclaim that he 
trusts, not in a Divinity, but in a Fiend: but will the wor¬ 
shipper himself perceive and acknowledge this ? — will he not 
indignantly deny it ? — will he not eagerly vindicate the per¬ 
fection of the Deity he serves ? He can do no otherwise; for 
16 * 


186 


FIVE POINTS OF CHRISTIAN FAITH. 


he discerns nothing more sublime, and cannot be convinced 
that that is low which stands at the summit of his thoughts. 
This uniform phenomenon in the history of religion could 
not exist, if human faith were an inference of intellectual 
origin. There would be nothing then to prevent some men, 
in their reasonings on the probable character of God, from 
assigning to that character a place beneath their own con¬ 
ceptions of what is most excellent; and amid the infinite 
varieties of speculation, many forms of this opinion would 
undoubtedly arise. Let any one, then, who dissents from the 
account which we have given, ask himself this question : "W hy 
is it, that to discover a blemish in a divinity is the same 
thing as to renounce faith in him; and that, even in pagan 
times, to assail the character of the gods was the constant 
mark of an unbelieving age? Is it not clear that, by a 
constraining necessity of our being, we are compelled to 
regard the godlike and the perfect as identical, and to look 
to heaven through the eye of our moral nature ? The Intellect 
alone, like the telescope waiting for an observer, is quite blind 
to the celestial things above it, — a dead mechanism dipped 
in night, — ready to serve as the dioptric glass, spreading the 
images of light from the Infinite on the tender and living 
retina of Conscience. 

If, then, there is no discernment of Deity except through 
our moral sense, the importance of confiding in the percep¬ 
tions of that sense, — of rendering our consciousness of them 
vivid and distinct, — and the corresponding mischief of dis¬ 
trusting and repudiating these our appointed instructors,— 
become evident. Faith in the human conscience is neces¬ 
sary to faith in the Divine perfection: and this again is the 
needful prelude to the belief in any special revelation. For, 
unless we are first assured of the truth and excellence of 
God, we cannot tell that his communications may not de¬ 
ceive us, giving us false notices of things, and agitating us 
with illusory hopes and fears. This might be apprehended 
from a Being of undetermined benevolence and integrity: 
and that this idea of a mendacious revelation has never se- 


FIVE POINTS OF CHRISTIAN FAITH. 


187 


riously entered the minds of men, is a strong proof of their 
natural and necessary faith in the rectitude and goodness of 
the Divine Administrator of creation. This Moral Perfec¬ 
tion of God being assumed as a postulate in the very idea of 
a Revelation, no system of religion which contradicts it can 
be admitted as credible on any terms. 

Now the whole scheme of Redemption, as it is represented 
in the popular theology, appears to us to fall under this 
condemnation. Under the names of Justice, Sanctity, Mercy, 
it ascribes to the All-perfect a course of sentiment and of 
practice which — it is undeniable — no other moral agent, 
placed in analogous relations, could adopt without the deepest 
guilt. The Holiness of God, so often adduced to justify the 
severities of this scheme, we would yield to no one in ear¬ 
nestly maintaining; believing, as we do, that his abhorrence 
of moral evil is absolute and everlasting, his resistance to it 
real and true, and his love of excellence simply infinite as 
his nature. But purity of mind does not express itself by 
implacable vengeance against the impure, or oblige its pos¬ 
sessor to engage himself in physically smiting them, — much 
less limit him through all eternity to this mode of adminis¬ 
tration. Rather does it incline away from a treatment which 
.too often adds only torment, and removes no guilt, — which 
makes no advance towards the blessed dispositions it loves, — 
which fevers and parches instead of cooling and melting the 
passions of a culprit nature. It is a coarse and wretched 
error to suppose that anguish is a specific for sin, to the 
incessant infliction of which the Sinless is bound. God never 
departs indeed from his devotion to the laws of goodness, and 
his design of calling wider and wider virtue into existence: 
but he pursues them with the fertility of his infinite free-will; 
— now by the severities of his displeasure, — now by the 
openness of his forgiveness, — now by the solicitations of his 
love. His purpose, as one whose perfection is not merely 
spotless, but active and productive, cannot be, as some Chris¬ 
tians seem to say, the penal publication of his personal offence 
against the insulters of his law, but the spread and cultivation 


188 


FIVE POINTS OF CHRISTIAN FAITH. 


throughout his spiritual universe of pure and high affections: 
and whenever the new germs of these appear in the garden 
of the Lord, no vernal sunshine or summer dews can more 
gently cherish the bursting flower, than does his mercy foster 
the fair and early growth. The assertion that God cannot 
pardon and recall to goodness till he has expended his tor¬ 
tures upon the evil, seems to us a plain denial of his moral 
excellence. Theologians speak as if there were some crime, 
or at least some weakness, in the clemency which freely 
receives a repentant creature into favor; as if the mercy 
which exacts no penalty, when penalty is no longer needed, 
were an amiable imbecility of human nature, which only a 
loose-principled and unholy being can exercise ! as if absolute 
unforgiveness were the perfection of sanctity! True, this 
is disclaimed in words; and the Eternal Father is called 
merciful, for remitting the sinner’s doom and transferring the 
burden of his guilt to a victim divine and pure. But surely 
this disclaimer is more insulting to our moral sense than the 
accusation. For, either this transference of righteousness 
and guilt is a mere figure of speech, denoting only that, from 
the death on Calvary, God took chronological occasion to 
pass his own spontaneous pardon, and set up the cross to 
mark the date of his volition; or else, if the vicariousness be 
not this mere pretence, it describes an outrage upon the first 
principles of rectitude, a reckless disregard of all moral con¬ 
siderations, from the thought of which we are astonished 
that all good men do not recoil. 

We press once more the question which has never been 
answered: How is the alleged immorality of letting off the 
sinner mended by the added crime of penally crushing the 
Sinless ? Of what man — of what angel — could such a thing 
be reported, without raising a cry of indignant shame from 
the universal human heart ? What should we think of a 
judge who should discharge the felons from the prisons of 
a city, because some noble and generous citizen offered him¬ 
self to the executioner instead ? And if this would be bar¬ 
barity below, it cannot be holiness above. Moral excellence 


FIVE POINTS OF CHRISTIAN FAITH. 


189 


and beauty, we repeat, are no local growths, changing their 
species with every clime ; nor are the poisonous weeds of this 
outer region the chosen adornments of paradise. The prin¬ 
ciples of Justice and Right embrace all beings and all times, 
and, like the indestructible conception of space, attach them¬ 
selves to our contemplation of objects within the remotest 
infinitude. It is no more possible that what would be evil in 
man should be good in God, than that a circle on earth 
should be a square in heaven. Having faith, then, in the 
absolute perfection of our Creator, we dare ascribe to Him 
nothing which revolts the secret conscience He has given us. 


III. The relation which thus subsists between the human 
conscience and the Divine excellence leads us to avow, in 
the next place, a faith in the strictly Divine and Inspired 
Character of our own highest Desires and best Affections. 
We do not mean by this, that these affections are of miracu¬ 
lous origin; that their appearance breaks through any regular 
law; or that they do not belong to our own nature so as to 
form an integrant part of its history; or that they do not 
arise spontaneously within it, but require to be precipitated 
upon it from without. They are as much properties of our 
own minds, as our selfishness and sin: we are conscious of 
them, and so they cannot but be parts of our personality.* 


* Perhaps we should rather say, “ they cannot be alien to our nature.” 
The word personality is used by philosophical writers to denote that 
which is peculiar, as well as essential, to our individual self. In this strict 
sense the moral and spiritual affections are impersonal , according to the doc¬ 
trine of the context, which treats them as constituting a participation in the 
Divine nature. The metaphysical reader will perhaps perceive here a re¬ 
semblance to the theory of Victor Cousin, who maintains that the will — the 
free and voluntary activity —of the human being is the specific faculty in 
which alone consists his personality; and that the intuitive reason by 
which we have knowledge of the unlimited and absolute Cause, as well as 
of ourselves and the universe as related effects, is independent and imper¬ 
sonal,— a faculty not peculiar to the subject, but “ from the bosom of con¬ 
sciousness extending to the Infinite, and reaching to the Being of beings.” 
“ Reason,” observes this philosopher, “ is intimately connected with person¬ 
ality and sensibility, but it is neither the one nor the other: and precisely 
because it is neither the one nor the other, because it is in us without being 



100 


FIVE POINTS OF CHRISTIAN FAITH. 


But in admitting them to be human , I do not deny that they 
are divine: in regarding them as indigenous to our created 
spirit, I do not treat them as foreign to the Creator’s; nor is 
there any inconsistency in believing them to be simultaneously 
domesticated with both. That which is included within the 
mind of man, is not therefore excluded from the mind of God; 
much less is it true that occurrences agreeable to the order of 
nature are, by that circumstance, disqualified from being held 
the immediate products of the Heavenly Will. The Supreme 
Cause, so far from being shut out by his own secondary causes 
and natural laws, has now at least no residence, no activity, 
no existence, except within them ; He covers, penetrates, fills 
them ; thinks, speaks, executes, through them, as the media of 
his volition : and His energy and theirs not only may coincide , 
but even must coalesce He is not to be brought down from 
his universal dominion to the rank of one of the physical 
causes active in creation, doing that only which the others 
have left undone. Will any one stand with me by the mid¬ 
night sea, and, because the tides in the deep below hang upon 
the moon in the heavens above, forbid me to hear in their 
sweep the very voice of God, and tell me that, while they 


ourselves, does it reveal to us that which is not ourselves, — objects beside 
the subject itself, and which lie beyond its sphere.” At the opposite pole to 
this doctrine, which makes the perceptions of “ Reason ” a part of the ac¬ 
tivity of God, lies the system of Kant and Fichte, which represents God as 
an ideal formation, — it may be, therefore, a fiction, — arising from the ac¬ 
tivity of the “ Reason.” This faculty is treated by these German philoso¬ 
phers as merely subjective and personal; its perceptions, even when they 
seem to go beyond itself, are known only as internal conditions and results 
of self-activity; its beliefs, though inevitable to itself, are simply relative, 
and have no objective validity. The faiths and affections which this system 
regards as purely human, are considered by the other as divine. The doc¬ 
trine maintained above, though resembling that of Kant in one or two of 
its phrases, far more nearly approaches that of Cousin in its spirit. It is 
scarcely necessary to observe that, in this note, the word “ Reason ” is used, 
not as equivalent to “ Understanding,” but in the German sense so long ren¬ 
dered familiar to the English reader by the writings of Mr. Coleridge. It 
includes, therefore, (in its two senses of “ Speculative ” and “ Practical,") the 
“ Moral Perceptions ” and “ Primitive Faiths of the Conscience,” spoken of 
in the text. 



FIVE POINTS OF CHRISTIAN FAITH. 


191 


roll untired on, He sleeps through the silent vault around me ? 
It is by the law of gravitation that the planets find an un¬ 
erring track in the desert space; and is it false, then, that 
He “ leadeth them forth with his finger,” and bids us note, in 
pledge of his punctuality, that “ not one faileth ” ? Is there 
any error in ascribing the very same event at one time to 
gravitation, at another to God ? Certainly not; for this is 
but one of the forms of his personal activity. And it is the 
same in the world of Mind; its natural laws do not exclude, 
but, on the contrary, include, the direct Divine agency: and 
though my thought, or hope, or love, cannot be yours , they 
may yet be God’s ; not emanations from the God without 
us, but inspirations of the God within. Why should we 
start to think that there is a part of us which is divine ? — 
why image to ourselves a distant, external, contemplative 
God, seeing all things and touching nothing, gazing on the 
unconscious evolutions of things, as the retired Mechanist of 
nature ? — why enthrone Him in the inertness of dead space, 
without even a sacred function there, and exclude Him from 
the tried, and tempted, and ever-trembling soul of Man ? If 
we found Him not at home in the secret places of strife and 
sorrow, vainly should we wander to seek Him in the colder 
regions of nature abroad. We have no sympathy with any 
system which denies the doctrine of a Holy Spirit; which 
discerns nothing divine in the higher experiences of human 
nature ; which owns no black abyss and no heavenly heights 
in the soul of man, but only a flat, common, midway region, 
neither very foul nor very fair, — well enough for the streets 
of traffic, but without a mount of vision and of prayer. Noth¬ 
ing noble, nothing great, has ever come from a faith which 
did not deeply reverence the soul, and stand in awe of it as 
the seat of God’s own dwelling, the presence-chamber of his 
sanctity, — the focus of that infinite whispering-gallery which 
the universe spreads around us. 

Nor can we doubt at what point of our own nature we 
must stand, in order to hear the voice and feel the inspira¬ 
tion of the Eternal. The pure in heart — each in propor- 


192 


FIVE POINTS OF CHRISTIAN FAITH. 


tion to his purity — see Him. Our Conscience, our Moral 
Perceptions, as we have seen, are our only revealers of God. 
In proportion to their clearness do we discern Him; and 
behind the clouds that obscure them, He becomes dim, and 
vanishes away. The aspirations of duty, the love of excel¬ 
lence, the disinterested and holy atfections, of which every 
good heart is conscious, constitute our affinity with Him, — 
by which we know Him, as like knows like: they are the 
expression of his mind, the pencil of rays by which He paints 
his image on our spiritual nature. God is related to our 
soul, like the sun in a stormy sky to the windowed cells in 
which mortals live ; and as we sit at our work in the cham¬ 
ber of conscience or of love, the burst of brilliancy or the 
sudden gloom within reports to us the clear-shining or the 
cloud of the heaven without. Nor can any philosophy, 
falsely so called, permanently expel this conviction from the 
Christian heart. Every devout and earnest mind naturally 
feels that its selfishness and sin are of the earth, earthy, — 
the most offensive of all attitudes to God, — the infatuated 
turning of the back to Him: and, on the other hand, wel¬ 
comes the fresh glow of pure Resolve, the heart-felt sob of 
Penitence, the glorious Courage that slays Temptation at his 
feet, — each as the gracious gift of a divine strength, and the 
authentic voice of the Inspirer, God. By this natural faith 
(natural, however, only to the Christian mind) we are pre¬ 
pared to abide; and, with the Apostle Paul, to own ourselves, 
not without deep awe, the very temple of the Holiest. 

IY. We have said, that in the Conscience and Moral Af¬ 
fections we have our only revealers of God. Let it be un¬ 
derstood that we mean our only internal revealers of Him ; 
the only faculty of our nature capable of furnishing us with 
the idea and belief of Him, with any perception of his char¬ 
acter, and allegiance to his will. We mean to state that, 
without this faculty, the bare intellect, the mere scientific 
and reasoning power, could make no way towards the knowl¬ 
edge of divine realities ; could never, by any system of helps 


FIVE POINTS OF CHRISTIAN FAITH. 


193 


whatsoever, be trained or guided into this knowledge, any 
more than, in the absence of the proper sense, the ear of 
the blind can be taught to see ; and that nature, life, history, 
miracle, notwithstanding their most sedulous discipline, would 
leave us utterly in the dark about religion, except so far as 
they addressed themselves to our consciousness of what is 
holy, just, beautiful, and great. But we do not mean to state 
that the Moral Sense can stand alone, dispense with all out¬ 
ward instruction, and supply a man with a natural religion 
ready made. Nor do we mean that the every-day experience 
of man, and the ordinary providence of God, are enough, 
without special revelation, to lead us to heavenly truth. And 
we are therefore prepared to advance another step, and to say, 
that, while regarding the human conscience as the only inward 
revealer of God, we have faith in Christ as his perfect and 
transcendent outward revelation . We conceive that Jesus of 
Nazareth lived and died, not to persuade the Father, not to 
appease the Father, not to make a sanguinary purchase from 
the Father, but simply to “ show us the Father”; to leave 
upon the human heart a new, deep, vivid impression of what 
God is in himself, and of what he designs for his creature, 
man; to become, in short, the accepted interpreter of heaven 
and life. And this he achieved, in the only way of which we 
can conceive as practicable, by a new disclosure in his own 
person of all that is holy and godlike in character, — startling 
the human soul with the sudden apparition of a being diviner 
far than it had yet beheld, and lifting its faith at once into 
quite another and purer region. If it be true, as we have 
ventured to affirm, that to every man his God is his best , you 
can by no means give to his faith a higher God , till you have 
given to his heart a better best , — till you have touched him 
with a profounder sense of sanctity and excellence, and puri¬ 
fied and enlarged the perceptions of his conscience. Nor can 
you do this , except by presenting -him with nobler models, 
with the living form of a fairer and sublimer goodness, visibly 
transcending every object of his previous reverence. No 
verbal teaching, no didactic rules, oan transform any man’s 
17 


104 


FIVE POINTS OF CHRISTIAN FAITH. 


moral taste, and place before bis mental view a lovelier and 
truer image of perfection : as well might you hope, by deli- ^ 
nition, and precept, and book-wisdom, to train an artist with a 
soul like RafFaelle, or an eye like Claude. But only give the 
glorious model to the mind, 'produce the most finished excel¬ 
lence and harmony, and our instinctive sympathy with good¬ 
ness feels and discerns it instantly, and, though unable to 
conceive it inventively beforehand, recognizes it reverently 
afterwards. And so Christ, standing in solitary greatness, 
and invested with unapproachable sanctity, opens at once the 
eye of conscience to perceive and know the pure and holy 
God, the Father that dwelt in him and made him so full of 
truth and grace. Him that rules in heaven we can in no 
wise believe to be less perfect than that which is most divine 
on earth ; of anything more perfect than the meek yet majestic 
Jesus, no heart can ever dream. And, accordingly, ever since 
he visited our earth with blessing, the soul of Christendom has 
worshipped a God resembling him, — a God of whom he was 
the image and impersonation ; — and, therefore, not the God 
of which philosophy dreams, — a mere Infinite physical Force, 
without spirituality, without love, chiefly engaged in whirling 
the fly-wheel of nature, and sustaining the material order 
of the heavens, and weaving in the secret workshop of 
creation new textures of life and beauty; not the God of 
which natural theology speaks, the mere chief of ingenious 
mechanicians, more optical, and dynamical, and architec¬ 
tural, than our most skilful engineers, — a cold intellectual 
Being, in the severe immensity and immutability of whose 
mind all warm emotions are absorbed and dissolved; not the 
God of Calvinism, creating a race with certain foresight of 
the eternal damnation of the many, and against the few re¬ 
fusing to relax his frown except at the spectacle of blood ; — 
but the Infinite Spirit, so holy, so affectionate, so pitiful, whom 
Jesus felt to be in him as his Inspirer; who passes by no 
wounds of sin or sorrow; who stills the winds and waves of 
terror, to the perishing that call on him in faith; who stops 
the procession of our grief, and bids bereaved affection weep 


FIVE POINTS OF CHRISTIAN FAITH. 


195 


no more, but wait upon the voice that even the dead obey; 
who scathes the hypocrite with the lightning of conviction, 
and permits the penitent to wash his feet with tears; who 
reckons most his own the gentlest follower, that rests the 
head and turns up the trustful eye on him ; and bends that 
look of piercing love upon the guilty which best rebukes the 
guilt. Jesus has given us a faith never held before, and still 
too much obscured, in the affectionateness of the Great Ruler; 
has made Him our own domestic God, whose ample home 
encircles all, leaving not the solitary, the sinner, or the sad 
without a place in the mansions of his house ; has wrapped 
us in the Divine immensity without fear, and bid us claim 
the warm sun in heaven as our Paternal hearth, and the 
vault of the pure sky as our protecting roof. 

We have spoken of Christ’s personal representation, in 
his own character and practical life, of the spirit of the Di¬ 
vine Mind, and have explained how in this way we believe 
that he has “ shown us the Father.” This, however, is not 
all. His direct teachings , perfectly in harmony with his life, 
confirm and extend its lessons; and we listen, with venerat¬ 
ing faith, to his inimitable exposition of all divine truth. 
Purity of soul makes the most wonderful discoveries in heav¬ 
enly things, and is indeed the pellucid atmosphere through 
which the remoter lights of God are “ spiritually discerned.” 
As we have said, the knowledge of him which any mind (be 
it of man or of angel) may possess, is just proportioned to 
its sanctity: and our Messiah, having the very highest sanc¬ 
tity, was enabled to speak with the highest and most au¬ 
thoritative knowledge, and was inspired to be our infallible 
guide, not perhaps in trivial questions of literary interpre¬ 
tation, or scientific fact, or historical expectation, but in all 
the deep and solemn relations on which our sanctification 
and immortal blessedness depend. And both to his person 
and to his teachings do the miracles of his life, the tragedy 
of his crucifixion, and the glory of his resurrection, articu¬ 
lately call the attention of all ages, as with the voice of 
God. In every way we discern in Christ the transcendent 


196 


FIVE POINTS OF CHRISTIAN FAITH. 


revelation of the Most High. We are told, that this is to 
dishonor Christ. We think it, however, a more glorious 
honor to him, to be thus indissolubly folded within the in¬ 
timacy of the Father’s love, than to be blasted by the tempest 
of his wrath; nor could we ever trust and venerate a God 
who — like the barbarians in the judgment-hall—could 
smite that meek lamb of heaven with one rude blow of 
vengeance. 


Y. But we hasten to observe, finally, that we have faith 
in Human Immortality, as exemplified in the heavenly life 
to which Jesus ascended. To assure us of this great truth, 
it were enough that Jesus assumed and taught it; that it 
was his great postulate, essential to the development of his 
own character, and to all his views of the purposes of life, — 
an integrant part of his insight into human responsibility 
and his version of human duty. For if he did not teach the 
reality pf God in this matter, sure we are that none else has 
ever done so; and most of all, that the sceptics who doubt 
the heavenly futurity have no claim to take his place as 
our instructors. For if this hope were a delusion, who would 
the mistaken be ? Will any one tell me, that the voluptuary, 
who, from abandonment to the body, cannot imagine the 
perpetuity of the spirit; — that the selfish, who, looking at 
the meanness of his own nature, sees nothing worth immor¬ 
talizing ; — that the contented Epicurean, who, in prudent 
quietude of sense and sympathy, finds adequate satisfaction 
in this mortal life ; — that the cold speculator, who looks at 
the fouler side of human nature, and, showing us on its 
features the pallor of sensualism or the hard lines of guilt, 
deems it less fit for the duration of the angel than for the 
extinction of the brute ; — that these men are right; while 
Christ, who walked without despair through the deepest 
haunts of sin, with faith that succumbed not to wretchedness 
and wrong, but stood up and conquered them; who em¬ 
braced our whole nature in his love, and displayed it in its 
perfectness; who lived and died in its utmost service, with 


FIVE POINTS OF CHRISTIAN FAITH. 


197 


prayers and tears and blood; to whom our most binding 
affections cling almost with worship as the holiest glory of 
our world ; — that he could be under a delusion here ? — that 
when, sinking in trustful death, he laid his meek head to 
rest on the bosom of the Father, he was cast off, and dropped 
on the cold clod ? — that he sobbed into the Infinite by night 
with a vain love that met no answer ? — that God rather 
takes part in his providence with the mean-souled, the 
cynic, the morbid, the selfish? There is no greater impos¬ 
sibility than this, on which evidence can fall back. Nay, 
we confess that, even apart from his doctrine, the mere 
mortal history of Christ would have settled with us the ques¬ 
tion of futurity. For the great essential to this belief is a 
sufficiently elevated estimate of human nature: no man will 
ever deny its immortality who has a deep impression of its 
capacity for so great a destiny. And this impression is so 
vividly given by the life of Jesus, — he presents an image 
of the soul so grand, so divine, — as utterly to dwarf all the 
dimensions of its present career, and to necessitate a heaven 
for its reception. At all events, it is allowable to feel this, 
when we see that this natural sequel was actually and per¬ 
ceptibly appended; that this u Holy One of God could not 
see corruption,” but rose, above the reach of mortal ill, to 
the world where now he welcomes the souls of the sainted 
dead. That other life we take to be a scene for the 
mind’s ampler and ampler development, apart from those 
animal and selfish elements which now deform and degrade 
it by their excess. And this alone, if there were nothing 
else, would render it a life of awful retribution. For to the 
wicked, what is this loss of “ the natural man,” but total 
bereavement and utter death of joy ? — what to the good, but 
a glad and sacred birth ? — to the one, a Promethean exile 
on a mid-rock in the ocean of night, under the bite of a 
remorse that gnaws impalpably, felt always, but never seen, 
— to the other, a welcome to the loving homes of the blest, 
amid the sunshine of the everlasting hills? Yet precisely 
because we believe in Retribution, do we trust in Restoration. 
17 * 


198 


FIVE POINTS OF CHRISTIAN FAITH. 


The very abhorrence with which a man’s better mind ever 
looks upon his worse, while it inflicts his punishment, begins 
his cure: and we can never allow that God will suspend this 
natural law impressed by himself on our spiritual constitu¬ 
tion, merely in order to stop the process of moral recovery, 
and specially enable him to maintain the eternity of torment 
and of sin. And so, beyond the dark close of life rise before 
us the awful contrasts of retribution ; and in the farther dis¬ 
tance, the dim but glorious vision of a purified, redeemed, and 
progressive universe of souls. 

Here, then, are our Five Points of Christianity, considered 
as a system of positive religious doctrine, viz.: — 1st. The 
truth of the Moral Perceptions in man, — not, as the de¬ 
generate churches of our day teach, their pravity and blind¬ 
ness ; 2dly. The Moral Perfection of the character of God, — 
in opposition to the doctrine of his Arbitrary Decrees and 
Absolute Self-will; 3dly. The Natural awakening of the 
Divine Spirit within us, — rather than its Preternatural 
communication from without; 4thly. Christ, the pure Image 
and highest Revelation of the Fternal Father, — not his Vic¬ 
tim and his Contrast; 5thly. A universal Immortality after 
the model of Christ’s heavenly life; an immortality not of 
capricious and select salvation, with unimaginable torment as 
'the general lot, but, for all, a life of spiritual development, 
of retribution, of restoration. 

To the Moral doctrine which, in our view, the Gospel 
conjoins with this religious system, it is impossible for us 
at present to advert. Suffice to say that, with Paul, we ex¬ 
claim, u not Law , but Love ” .* — love to God, to Christ, not 
simply for what they have done for us, but chiefly for what 
they are in themselves; — nothing like the narrow-hearted 
gratitude for an exclusive salvation, but a moral affection 
awakened by their holiness, rectitude, truth, and mercy,— 
by the sublimity and spirituality of their designs, and the 
sanctity and fidelity of their execution: love also to man, 
looking, to him not merely as a sentient being who is to 


FIVE POINTS OF CHRISTIAN FAITH. 


199 


be made happy , but as a child of God, who is to be raised 
into some likeness to the Divine image; as a brother spirit, 
noble in nature, even though sinful in fact, glorious as an 
immortal in the eye of God, though disfigured by this world’s 
hardship or contempt. 

Does any one ask, where we yet our system of faith and 
morals ? What are the principles of reasoning which we 
apply to nature and Scripture to extract it thence ? The 
reply would require a volume of exposition. Suffice it to 
say, that we think we have full warrant for this belief from 
the Scriptures of the New Testament, with which alone we 
conceive that Christians have any practical concern; that, 
in interpreting these Scriptures, we follow the same rules 
which we should apply to any other books $ that not even 
could their instructions make us false to that sense of right 
and wrong which God has breathed into us; that if they 
taught respecting him anything unjust or unholy, we should 
not accept it, but reject them; and that, as to the points of 
faith on which we have dwelt, some receive these truths 
because they were taught by Christ; others receive Christ 
because he taught these truths. 

On this faith we desire to take our stand, with the firmness, 
but without the ferocity, of the first Reformers. Opposing 
churches tell us, we “ are so frigid ”! Why, it is the very 
thing our own hearts had often said to us ; for there is noth¬ 
ing that so promptly rebukes the coldness of our nature as 
the warmth of our faith. We do not, however, much ad¬ 
mire this mutual criticism of each other’s temperature ; and 
strongly suspect the reality of that earnestness which prides 
itself on its own intensity. We must not propose to assume 
any artificial heats, in order to spite and disprove this fre¬ 
quent accusation; but be resolved, in an age diseased with 
pretence, to remain realities, to profess nothing which we do 
not believe, to withhold nothing whereon we doubt, to affect 
nothing which we do not feel, to promise nothing which we 
will not do ; holding, with Paul, that simplicity and sincerity 
are truly the godliest of things. With Heaven’s good help, 


200 


FIVE POINTS OF CHRISTIAN FAITH. 


may we bear our testimony thus ; deeming it a small thing 
to be judged by man’s judgment; and, with such light and 
heat as God shall put into our hearts, delivering over our 
portion of truth to generations that will give it a more genial 
welcome. There is greatness in a faith, when it can win a 
wide success or make rapid conquest over submissive minds. 
There is a higher greatness in a faith that, when God ordains, 
can stand up and do without success ; — unmoved amid the 
pitiless storms of a fanatic age ; with foot upon the rock of its 
own fidelity, and heart in the serene Infinite above the canopy 
of cloud and tempest. 




CREED AND HERESIES OF EARLY CHRIS¬ 
TIANITY. 


1 . 'Qpiyevovs ^i\ocro(f>ov peva tj Kara nacrcou aipeaeoiv e\ey^os. 
Origenis Philosophumena sive omnium hceresium refutatio. 
E codice Parisino nunc primum edidit Emmanuel Miller. 
Oxonii: e Typographeo Academico. 1851. 

2. Hippolytus and his Age ; or the Doctrine and Practice of 
the Church of Rome under Commodus and Alexander Se- 
verus ; and Ancient and Modem Christianity and Divinity 
compared. By Christian Charles Josias Bunsen, 
D.C.L. In Four Volumes. London. 1852. 

When a stranger knocks at the gate of the Clarendon 
Printing-house, and presents his petition for aid, the Univer¬ 
sity of Oxford maintains its national character for good-na¬ 
tured opulence, — gives its money and signs its name, without 
very close inquiry into the case. The documents are really 
so respectable that there cannot be much amiss; and a vener¬ 
able institution, well known to be fond of the house, cannot be 
expected to go trudging through the back-lanes of history, and 
exposing its nostrils in the purlieus of heresy, in order to 
identify a literary petitioner, evidently above all common im¬ 
posture. So it supplies all his wants upon the spot, dresses 
him handsomely, and sends him out into the world as its wor¬ 
thy (though eccentric) friend, the catechist of Alexandria. 
The introduction, being left at the Prussian Legation, falls 




202 


CREED AND HERESIES 


into the hands of no stay-at-home benefactor, but of one who 
knows the by-ways of human life, and has an ear for the di¬ 
alects of many a place. M. Bunsen — as Oxford might have 
remembered — is not unacquainted with Egypt; and no soon¬ 
er does he raise his eyes from the credentials to the person of 
the stranger, than he discovers him to be no disciple of the 
Alexandrine Clement; recognizes the accent of the West; is 
reminded of the voice of Irenoeus; and, finally, being even 
more familiar with the Tiber than the Nile, detects a Roman 
beneath the mask of Origen. We do not in the least grudge 
the friend of Niebuhr the honor of a discovery which no one 
could turn to more effectual account; but every English schol¬ 
ar must feel mortified that the Imprimatur of our great Ec¬ 
clesiastical University should appear on a title-page manifestly 
false; that the first reader should see at a glance what the 
learned proprietors had missed; and that their Editio Prin- 
ceps of a recovered monument of Church antiquity should be 
superseded within a year or two of its publication. They are 
not principals, it is true, but only secondaries to the Editor, in 
the commission of this error: still, a lay bibliographer might 
reasonably expect, in resorting for aid to so renowned and 
reverend a body, that his own judgment would be kept in 
check; and their very consent to issue the work implies some 
critical opinion of its value, as derived from age and author¬ 
ship. Whether they are called upon to adopt at once M. 
Bunsen’s proposed title-page, and substitute the name of Hip- 
polytus for that of Origen, we will not say; but that the pres¬ 
ent title gives the book to the wrong author, seems placed 
beyond the reach of doubt. 

M. Emmanuel Miller, one of the curators of the National 
Library in Paris, was the first to make himself acquainted 
with the contents of this work, and to appreciate their impor¬ 
tance. Among the manuscripts under his care was one on 
cotton paper of the fourteenth century, which had been 
brought from Mount Athos in 1842, by M. Mynoides Mynas, 
a Greek agent employed by the French government to 
search the neglected treasures of that celebrated spot. The 


OF EARLY CHRISTIANITY. 


203 


superscription, “ On all Heresies,” was not inviting; but on 
turning over the leaves, some lines, unknown before, of Pin¬ 
dar and of another lyric poet, were found and copied; and the 
value of these excerpts being ascertained, M. Miller’s atten¬ 
tion was directed to the body of the treatise containing them. 
The treatise had already been described, in the Moniteur of 
the 5 th of January, 1844, as a Refutation of all Heresies, in 
ten books, but with the first three missing, as well as the con¬ 
clusion of the whole; and he soon became aware, that, of the 
three missing books, the first already existed, and had been 
printed under the name of “ Philosophumena,” in the edi¬ 
tions of Origen’s works. Its very title is found in the manu¬ 
script at the end of the fourth book, and denotes that the por¬ 
tion of the work there concluded completes the sketch of phi¬ 
losophical systems, which the author prefixes to his account of 
ecclesiastical aberrations; and there are mutual references, 
backwards and forwards, between the printed book and the 
manuscript, which leave no doubt that the latter is a sequel 
to the former. The Editor, therefore, has very properly re¬ 
printed the “ Philosophumena ” as the commencement of the 
newly recovered work; which thus exhibits a regular plan, 
and consists of two parts, viz.: first, four books, — of which 
the second and third are lost, — expounding the Pagan phi¬ 
losophies, especially the Greek, from which, the author con¬ 
tends, the various heresies of Christendom are mere plagia¬ 
risms ; then six books, containing an account, in an order pre¬ 
vailingly historical, of thirty or thirty-two heresies, supported 
by extracts from their standard writings, and wound up in the 
recapitulary book at the end by the writer’s own profession of 
faith. Now who is the author ? 

Not Origen; for, as Iluet had already remarked respecting 
the “ Philosophumena,” the writer speaks of himself in terms 
implying an episcopal position; and, in the ninth book, he 
gives an account of transactions in Rome, extending over 
many years, in which he was evidently an eyewitness and an 
actor. While the scene is thus laid at a distance from Ori¬ 
gen’s sphere, and the date also of the personal matter runs 


204 


CREED AND HERESIES 


back into his boyhood, the cast of the theological doctrine is 
wholly different from his; for instance, in a certain “ Treatise 
on the Universe,” to which the author refers as his own, and 
of which a fragment is preserved, the penal condition of the 
wicked after death is said to be immutable; * but Origen, it is 
well known, taught a doctrine of final restoration. Add to 
this, that no such work as the present is attributed to Origen 
by any ancient witness, and the case against his name may be 
regarded as complete. 

The evidence which disappoints this claim narrows also our 
choice of others. The personal transactions to which we 
have referred took place at Rome, while Zephyrinus and his 
successor, Callistus, presided over the Christian community 
there, that is, during the first twenty years of the third cen¬ 
tury. We must, therefore, look for our author among the 
metropolitan clergymen of that period. Still closer is the cir¬ 
cle drawn by the fact, that the writer largely borrows from 
the treatise of Irenaeus on the same subject; and, though vast¬ 
ly improving on that foolish production, and copiously contrib¬ 
uting fresh materials, betrays the general affinity of thought 
which unites the stronger disciple with the feebler master. 

The problem then being to find a pupil of the Bishop of 
Lyons among the ecclesiastics of Rome, at the beginning of 
the third century, two names are given in as answering the 
conditions, — those of Hippolytus, a suburban clergyman, and 
of Caius, whose charge lay within the city itself. In order to 
vindicate the claim of the first, it has been necessary for M. 
Bunsen to prove that his locality is right; and that the “ Por- 
tus Romae,” of which he was bishop, was not, as Le Moyne 

* rois fiev ev npd^aeri diKcit&s rrjv didtov anoXavcnv irapacr\ 6 vTos , 
rats fie tojv <f>avXuu epaorais tt)v olcoviov KoXaaiv a7rov(i fiavros. Ka'i 
tovtois fiev to nvp acrficorov diapevei Kai aTeXeirerov , er/ca>Ae£ fie tis 
epnvpos , fir) reXevToiiV, firjbe crQ>pa diacjidetpav, airavo-reo fie ofi vvrj e< 
crdiparos eK^pdacroov napapevei. Tovrovs ov% vnvos dvanavcrei, ov 
vv£ 7raprjyopf)crei, ov Odvciros rrjs KoXiiaeoas anoXvaei, ov napd/cX^ai$ 
(Tvyyevuv peaiTevadvroov dvrjaet. S. Hippol. adv. Graecos. Fabricii Hipp. 
Op. p. 222. 



OF EARLY CHRISTIANITY. 


205 


and Cave had groundlessly supposed, the Arabian “ Portus 
Romanus ” of the district of Aden, but the new harbor made, 
or at least enlarged, by Trajan, on the northern bank of the 
Tiber, immediately opposite to Ostia. That he suffered mar¬ 
tyrdom there, and was buried in a cemetery on the Tiburtine 
road, is generally admitted, on the evidence of Prudentius, 
who has left a poem describing his memorial chapel on that 
spot, and of a statue of him, seated in a cathedra, which was 
dug up there three hundred years ago, and now stands in the 
library of the Vatican. It is certainly perplexing to find Je¬ 
rome avowing ignorance of the see over which he presided, if, 
for a quarter of a century, he was active at the centre of the 
Christian world; and not less so to discover in Rome itself, 
nay, in a Pope, or his transcriber, at the end of the fifth cen¬ 
tury, the impression that his scene of labor had been in Ara¬ 
bia ; and under the influence of these facts it has been sup¬ 
posed that though, coming to Italy, he had fallen among the 
martyrs of the West, he ought to be reckoned among the 
bishops of the East. On the whole, however, the reasons 
preponderate in favor of his residence, as “ Episcopus Portu- 
ensis,” within the presbytery of Rome. The title itself is an 
old one, still always assigned to some dignitary of the curia, 
and, no doubt, deriving its origin from the time when the 
Northern Harbor of the Tiber — of which in the ninth cen¬ 
tury, scarce a trace was left — was a flourishing emporium. 
The name of Hippolytus is associated by tradition with the 
spot; it is given, our author assures us, to a certain tower, 
near Fiumicino; and in the eighth and ninth centuries, a basil¬ 
ica of St. Hippolytus was restored at Portus by Leo III. and 
IV. An episcopal palace still remains. By acute and skilful 
combinations, effected with evidence scanty as a whole, and 
suspicious in every part, M. Bunsen has endeavored to re¬ 
produce the historical image of Hippolytus. His office of 
“ bishop ” implied simply the charge of the single congrega¬ 
tion at Portus; the members of that congregation were the 
“ plebs ” committed to his supervision; the city or village in 
which they lived was his diocese. His vicinity to the great 
18 


206 


CliEED AND HERESIES 


capital drew him, however, into a wider circle of duties. For 
while Rome itself was divided into several ecclesiastical dis¬ 
tricts, each of which had its own clergyman and lay deacons, 
the suburban bishops were associated with these officers to 
form a committee of management, or presbytery, presided 
over by the metropolitan. By his seat at this board, he was 
kept in living contact with all the most stirring interests of 
Christendom, which, wherever their origin might be, found 
their way to the imperial city, and more and more sought 
their equilibrium there. At a commercial seaport, his own 
congregation would largely consist of temporary settlers and 
mercantile agents, Greek brokers, Jewish bankers, African 
importers, to whom Italy was a lodging-house rather than a 
home; and by the continual influx of foreigners he would 
hear tidings of the remotest churches, and carry to the cleri¬ 
cal meetings in the city the newest gossip of all the heresies. 
Possibly this position, with its opportunities of various inter¬ 
course, may have contributed to form in him the agreeable ad¬ 
dress, and faculty of eloquent speech, which tradition ascribes 
to him; and induced him to commence the practice of writing 
with studious care the homilies which were to be delivered in 
the congregation. At all events he is the first of whom we 
distinctly hear as a great preacher. His period extends, it is 
supposed, from the reign of Commodus (180 - 193) to the first 
year of Maximin (235 - 6) ; and so brought him into the 
same presbytery-room with five popes, — Victor (187 — 198) ; 
Zephyrinus (201-218); Callistus (219-222); Urbanus 
(223 - 230) ; and Pontianus (230 — 235) ; with the last of 
whom he shared, in the last year of his life, a cruel exile to 
Sardinia, and returned only to fall a victim to fresh informa¬ 
tions, and suffer martyrdom by drowniilg in a canal. It can¬ 
not be denied that, in order to recover this picture of Hip- 
polytus, and still more in order to fix his literary position, the 
materials of evidence have to be dealt with in somewhat 
arbitrary fashion, and their lacuna to be filled by conjecture. 
Prudentius, for instance, is called as an historical witness, yet 
convicted of fable in much of what he says. His poem 


OF EARLY CHRISTIANITY. 


207 


declares that at one time Hippolytus had supported Novatus 
in his attempt to close the gates of repentance against the 
Lapsi, but had been reconciled to the catholic doctrine before 
he died. He must in this case have joined in the opposition 
raised by Novatianus (in 251) to the election of Cornelius to 
the papacy, and have died in the Decian persecution, which 
continued till the year 257. Moreover, the painting seen by 
the Spanish versifier on the walls of the memorial chapel 
introduces us to so ridiculous a story, as only to show how 
completely the martyrological legends had already escaped all 
the restraints of history. In this fresco the mythical fate of 
Hippolytus, the son of Theseus, is transferred to the Roman 
presbyter: he is represented as torn to pieces by horses; 
while the faithful follow to pick up his limbs and hair, and 
sponge away the blood upon the ground. If the sanctuary 
exhibiting this scene received the martyr’s remains from their 
original resting-place as early as the time of Constantine, — 
and such is our author’s opinion, — into what a state of degra¬ 
dation had the history of Hippolytus sunk in three quarters 
of a century! And if already memorial painting could thus 
impudently lie, how can we better trust the statue, admitted 
to be later still ? Yet this statue, on whose side is a list of 
the writings of Hippolytus, is appealed to in determining the 
martyr’s written productions, as the painted chapel in evidence 
of facts in his personal career. We fully admit the success 
of M. Bunsen in eliciting a possible result from a mass of 
intricate and tangled conditions, and presenting us with a 
highly interesting personage. But perhaps, as the venerable 
image of the good bishop has grown in clearness before his 
eye, and attracted his affection more and more, the very 
vividness of the conception may have rendered him insensible 
to the precariousness of the proof. Ecclesiastical fancy, in its 
unrestrained career, has tom his personality to pieces, and 
left the disjecta membra so rudely scattered on the strand of 
history, that we almost doubt the power of any critical Aescu¬ 
lapius to restore him to the world again. 

At the same board of church councillors with Hippolytus 


208 


CREED AND HERESIES 


sat another \oyia>Taros avrjp * * * § the presbyter Caius; and as an 
urban clergyman, he would be more constantly there than his 
suburban brother, separated by a distance of eighteen miles. 
To form any living image of him from the scanty notices of 
him which begin with Eusebius and end with Photius, is quite 
impossible. In one respect only do the personal character¬ 
istics attributed to him distinguish him from the bishop of 
Portus. He was a strenuous opponent of the peculiarities 
favored by the Christians of Lesser Asia, and especially of 
the claims to prophetic gifts, and the appeal to clairvoyant 
skill, by Montanus and his followers. With one of these, by 
name Proclus, he held a disputation; from which Eusebius 
has preserved a passage or two, showing, in conjunction with 
the title, not very intelligibly assigned to him, of “ Bishop of 
the Gentiles,” that he belonged to the most advanced anti- 
Jewish party in the Church, lamented the grossness of the 
popular millenarian dreams, vindicated the apostolic dignity 
of the Roman against the pretensions of the Eastern Chris¬ 
tianity, and disowned the Epistle to the Hebrews. This 
feature in the figure of Caius, though constituting the distinc¬ 
tion, does not, however, necessarily oppose him to Hippolytus, 
whose attitude towards the Montanists may not have been 
very different, but only less positively marked. Still the 
suspicions directed against the two men are of an opposite 
kind: with Hippolytus, the difficulty is to set him clear of 
sympathy with Montanism ; f with Caius, to prevent his being 
classed with its unmeasured opponents, the Alogi4 And a 
report even reaches us, that among the Chaldean Christians 
there exists, or did exist in the fourteenth century, a con¬ 
troversial treatise of Hippolytus against Caius. § 


* Euseb. H. E., VI. 20. 

t Attributed to him by Neander, Kirch. Geschichte, I. iii. 1150; and 
Schwegler, Montanismus, p. 224. 

t Storr places him at their head, Zweck der Evang. Geschichte, p. 63; 
and Eichhorn associates him with them, Einleitung in das N. T., II. 414. 

§ See the notice of the Nestorian Ebed Jesu, in Asseman’s Bibl. Orient. 
III. i. ap. Gieseler, k. 9, § 63. 



OF EARLY CHRISTIANITY. 


209 


Between these two men, so similar in position, and not, 
perhaps, unused to sharp argument face to face, springs up, at 
the end of all these ages, a rival claim to property in the 
“ Refutation of all the Heresies.” The chief counsel for 
Hippolytus, besides our author, are the eminent Professors 
Jacobi, Duncker, and Schneidewin, — all, we believe, belong¬ 
ing to the Neander school of theology; and as the last two 
are about to edit the work anew, and probably to give it its 
final form, their opinion of its authorship may be expected to 
prevail. The other side, however, advocated by Dr. Fessler, 
is sustained by perhaps the greatest of living historical critics, 
F. C. Baur, representative of the much-abused Tubingen 
school. Into so intricate a question we might be excused for 
inviting our readers, had we anything fresh to offer towards 
its solution; but the chief impression we have brought from 
its study is one of astonishment at the extreme positiveness 
with which the learned men on either side affirm their own 
conclusion. A more equal balance of evidence we never 
remember to have met with in any similar research ; and the 
faint and slender preponderance which alone the scale can 
ever exhibit, amusingly contrasts with the triumphant asser¬ 
tion, of both sets of disputants, that not a reasonable doubt 
remains. The leading points of M. Bunsen’s case are these. 
A work “ On all Heresies ” is attributed to Hippolytus, and 
in no instance to Caius, by Eusebius, Jerome, Epiphanius, and 
Peter of Alexandria, at the beginning of the fourth century. 
Such a book was still extant in the ninth century; for Pho- 
tius, the celebrated patriarch of Constantinople, has given us 
an account of its contents in the journal and epitome of his 
studies which he has left us. On comparing his report with 
the newly discovered book, the identity of the two works is 
established in some important respects: the number and con¬ 
cluding term of the series of heresies are the same; they 
both of them include materials taken from Irenoeus, while 
reversing his order of treatment. Further, in the newly 
found treatise reference is made by the author to other works 
of his, in which he has discussed certain points of early He- 
18 * 


210 


CREED AND HERESIES 


brew chronology in proving the antiquity of the Abrahamic 
race. Now, Eusebius was acquainted with a certain “ Chroni¬ 
cle ” of Hippolytus, brought down to the first year of Alex¬ 
ander Severus; and such a chronicle, in a Latin translation, 
is found in Fabricius’s edition of Hippolytus, only that its list 
of Roman emperors terminates, not with the beginning, but 
with the end, of Severus’s reign. It has, however, in common 
with our work, a peculiar number of tribes, — viz. seventy- 
two, derived from Noah. Thus, the author of the u Here¬ 
sies ” and of the “ Chronicle ” would appear to be the same, 
and, according to Eusebius, to be Hippolytus. Lastly, both 
in our new work, and also in a book called the “ Labyrinth,” 
written against some Unitarians of the second century, refer¬ 
ence is made to a treatise “On the Universe,” which the 
author mentions as his own production. By printing a frag¬ 
ment of this last in his edition of “ Hippolytus,” Fabricius lias 
shown to what name all three should, in his judgment, be set 
down; and that they cannot be given to Caius is rendered 
evident by the occurrence, in the fragment, of certain Apoca¬ 
lyptic fictions inconsistent with his rejection of the Book of 
Revelations. Moreover, the list of works on the statue of 
Hippolytus includes a disquisition “ Against the Greeks and 
against Plato, or Respecting the Universe .” 

What can be said to weaken so strong a case? Two 
doubts at once arise upon it, which we find it by no means 
easy to set aside. Granted, Hippolytus wrote a book “ On 
all Heresies ”; is it the same which is now delivered into our 
hands ? One medium of comparison we possess, enabling us 
to place the original and the present book, for a short space, 
side by side. The very Peter of Alexandria who is one of 
the early witnesses called on Hippolytus’s behalf has handed 
down to us a passage or two (preserved in the Paschal Chron¬ 
icle) from the book which he attests, with a distinct reference 
to the place where they are to be found. We turn to the 
right chapter, and the passages are not there. Nor is it a 
mere want of verbal agreement which we have to regret; the 
same topic — the controversy about the time of Easter_is 


OF EARLY CHRISTIANITY. 


211 


treated; the same side — that of the Western Church — is 
taken, in both instances ; but the arguments are different, and 
so far irreconcilable, that no one who had command of that 
which PeteT gives would ever resort to the feebler one which 
our work contains. With the dauntless ingenuity of German 
criticism M. Bunsen makes a virtue of necessity, and en¬ 
deavors to convert this unfortunate discrepancy into a fresh 
proof of identity. He thinks that, in this and some other 
parts, our work is but a . clumsy abstract of Hippoly tus’s 
original, which the citations of Peter enable us to recover 
and complete. This, however, is a plea which, it strikes us, 
damages his case as much by success as it could by failure. 
Por if the book presented to us by the Clarendon Press 
reflects the original no better than would appear from this 
only sample which it is in our power to test, it may indeed be 
a degenerate descendant from the pen of Hippolytus; but all 
reliable identity is lost, and the traces of his hand are no 
longer recoverable. The second doubt is this : — Is the work 
which Photius read the same that has now been rescued ? Of 
the few descriptive marks supplied by the patriarch, there are 
as many absent from our work as present in it. The treatise 
which he read was a “ little booh ” or “ tract” as Lardner calls 
it (j3t/3XiSapioi/), a word which can scarcely apply to a volume 
extending (as ours would, if complete) to four hundred and 
twenty octavo pages. M. Bunsen cuts down this number to 
two hundred and fifty, by supposing Photius to have only the 
last six books, containing the historical survey, without the 
groundwork of the philosophical deduction, of the heresies. 
The curtailment, if conceded, seems scarcely adequate to its 
purpose, and appears to us a very questionable conjecture. 
The manuscript, stripped of the first four books, would want 
the very basis of the whole argument; and, if such a mutila¬ 
tion were conceivable, it is impossible that Photius should fail 
to observe and mention it; for the fifth book opens, not like 
an independent treatise, but with a summary statement of 
what has been accomplished “ in the four boohs 'preceding 
this ” Again, Photius mentions the Dositheans as the first 


212 


CREED AND HERESIES 


set of heretics discussed; whereas their name does not occur 
at all, if we remember right, in our work, and their place is 
occupied by the “ Ophites.” M. Bunsen treats this as a mere 
inaccuracy of expression on the part of Photius, who meant, 
by the name “ Dositheans,” to indicate the same “ earliest 
Judaizing schools” that are better described as “Ophites.” 
The name, however, is so unsuitable to this purpose, that it 
would be a strange wilfulness in the learned patriarch to sub¬ 
stitute it for the language of the author he describes. He 
could not be ignorant that Dositheus, Simon, Menander, were 
the three founders of the Samaritan sect, exponents of the 
same doctrine, if not even reputed avatars of the same divine 
essence; * and if he had applied the name Dositheans to 
any of the heretics enumerated in our work, it would assured¬ 
ly have been to the followers of Simon , who stand fourth in 
the series of thirty-two, and not to Phrygian serpent-worship¬ 
pers, who commence the list. Further, the author whom 
Photius read stated that his book was a synopsis of the Lec¬ 
tures of Irenaeus. In our work no such statement occurs; 
and the use made of Irenaeus does not agree, either in quan¬ 
tity or character, with the substance of the assertion. And, 
lastly, the patriarch’s Hippolytus said “ some things which 
are not quite correct; for instance, that the Epistle to the 
Hebrews is not by the Apostle Paul.” In our work there is 
no such assertion; and when M. Bunsen suggests that per¬ 
haps its place might be in the lost books, he forgets that, 
according to his own conjecture, these books were no more in 
Photius’s hands than in ours, and that he cannot first cut them 
off in order to make a fiiftXi&dpiov, and then restore them, to 
provide a locus for a missing criticism on the Epistle to the 
Hebrews. The identity of our “ Philosophumena ” with the 
treatise which Photius read and Hippolytus wrote, appears, 
therefore, to be extremely problematical. 

One fixed point, however, is gained in the course of the 
argument, and gives an acknowledged position from which the 


* On their relation, and the doctrine connected with their names, see 
Baur’s “ Christl. Gnosis,” p. 310. 




OF EARLY CHRISTIANITY. 


213 


opposite opinions are willing to set out. Whoever wrote the 
disquisition “ On the Universe ” wrote also our work. This 
fact rests on the assertion of the author himself; yet, if the 
author be Hippolytus, and our “ Philosophy-mens,t; his 
u Refutation of all Heresies,” it is strange that no list of his 
writings mentions both books : the catalogues of Eusebius and 
Jerome naming the “ Heresies ” without the essay “ On the 
Universe ” ; and the engraving on the statue giving the essay 
“ On the Universe ” without the “ Heresies.” How can we ex¬ 
plain it, that these ecclesiastical writers, in knowing our work, 
did not know what is contained in it about the authorship of 
the other book; and that this book should have wandered 
anonymously about down to the ninth century, side by side 
with an acknowledged writing of Hippolytus, which all the 
while was proclaiming the solution of the question ? We 
should certainly expect that the book of avowed authorship 
w r ould convey the name of Hippolytus to the companion pro¬ 
duction for which it claims the same paternity; but, instead 
of this, it not only leaves its associate anonymous for six 
hundred years, but afterward assumes the modest fit, and 
becomes anonymous itself. Even if no previous reader had 
sense enough to put the two things together, and pick out the 
testimony of the one book to the origin of the other, are we 
to charge the same stupidity on the erudite Photius, who had 
both books in his hand, and has given his report of both ?* In 
his account of Hippolytus’s treatise, he nowhere tells us that it 
contains a reference to the essay “ On the Universe,” as being 
from the same pen; and that he found no such reference is 
certain ; for he actually discusses the question, “ Who wrote 
the essay on the Universe ? ” without ever mentioning Hippo¬ 
lytus at all. Just such a reference, however, as he did not find 
in Hippolytus, he did find in another work, of which he speaks 
under the title of “ The Labyrinth ” ; and, strange to say, it 
was at the end of the work,* precisely where it stands in our 

* Phot. Biblioth., cod. 48. cos Ka\ avros (i. e. Tatos) iv rw reXei rov 
'ka&vpivQov diepaprvparo, iavrov ctvcu rov irepi rrjs to 0 iravros ovaias 
\6yov. 



214 


CREED AND HERESIES 


“ Philosophumena. ” Who can resist the suspicion, t»iat the 
anonymous “ Labyrinth ” of Photius is no other than our 
anonymous “ Philosophumena 5> ? This conviction forced 
itself upon us on first weighing the evidence collected by 
M. Bunsen, in support of his different conclusion; and we 
observe that it is the opinion sustained by the great authority 
of Baur,* who even finds a trace in our work of the very 
title given by Photius; the writer observing, at the beginning 
of the tenth book, “ The Labyrinth of Heresies we have not 
broken through by violence, but have resolved by reiuration 
alone with the force of truth.; and now we come to tne posi¬ 
tive exposition of the truth.” At all events, the difference of 
title in the case of a work having probably more names than 
one, is of no weight in disproof of identity. With this new 
designation in our possession, we may return to search for 
our book in the records of ecclesiastical antiquity; and we 
have not far to go, before we alight on traces affording hopes 
of a result. No “ Labyrinth,” indeed, turns up in the literary 
history of earlier centuries than Photius; but a “ Little Laby¬ 
rinth ” is mentioned by Theodoret,f as sometimes ascribed to 
Origen, but as evidently not his ; and from his account of it, 
confirmed by the matter which he borrows from it, we learn 
that it was a controversial book, against a set of Unitarians in 
Rome, followers of Theodotus. It so happens that the very 
passage from this tract which Theodoret has used appears 
also, with others from the same source, in Eusebius, only 
quoted under another title, — the book being called a “ Work 
against the Heresy of Artemon ” (who was another teacher 
of the same school in the same age). The extracts thus pre¬ 
served to us are not found in our work ; which, therefore, if it 
be the “ Labyrinth,” is a distinct production from the “ Little 
Labyrinth ”; but they are so manifestly from the same pen, 


* Theologische Jahrbucher, 12er Band, I. 1853, p. 154. 
t Hasret. Fab. II. c. 5. Kara rrjs tovtcov 6 <rpLKpos (rvveypacfrr) X«/3v- 
pivdos, ov rives 'Slpiyevovs VTrdkapfiavovai 7 Toirjpa • dXX* 6 x a P afiT W 
{keyset rovs keyovras* 




OF EARLY CHRISTIANITY. 


215 


occupied in the same task, as to render it perfectly conceiv¬ 
able that the two books might receive the same name, with 
only a diminutive epithet to distinguish the lesser from the 
greater. Nor are we left, as Baur has shown, without a dis¬ 
tinct assertion by our “ great unknown,” that he had already 
composed a smaller treatise on the same subject; for, in tne 
introduction to the “ Philosophumena,” he says of the here¬ 
tics, “ We have before given a brief exposition of their opin¬ 
ions, refuting them in the gross, without presenting them in 
detail.” This shorter work would naturally treat of the par¬ 
ticular forms of error most immediately present and mischiev¬ 
ous before the author’s eyes ; and if he dwelt especially on 
the doctrines of Theodotus and Artemon, it is just what we 
should expect from an orthodox Roman. This essay, on a 
limited range of heresy, would naturally be issued at first 
with the special title by which Eusebius refers to it. But if 
it led the author to execute afterwards a much enlarged 
design, to which, from its intricate extent, he gave, on its 
completion, the fanciful designation of “ The Labyrinth,” he 
might naturally carry the name back to the earlier production, 
and, to mark the relation between the two, issue this in future 
as “ The Little Labyrinth.” Photius speaks of the tract 
against the heresy of Artemon as a separate work from 
“ The Labyrinth,” * and says the same thing of the latter f 
that Theodoret had remarked of the former, that by some it 
was ascribed to Origen. The result to which we are thus led 
is the following. Our newly found work is not Hippolytus’s 
fiifikibapiov “ On all Heresies,” but the book known to Photius 
as “ The Labyrinth ”; the author of which had previously 
produced two other works, viz. “ The Little Labyrinth ” men¬ 
tioned by Theodoret, and quoted under another name by 
Eusebius, and the “ Treatise on the Universe,” whose contents 


* He also describes its exact relation to the other, when he calls it a 
special work (l d t <o s) in comparison with “ The Labyrinth ” as a general 
one: avvrd^ai be kcu erepov \6yov lbi(os Kara rf/s*Aprepcovos alpeaecos- 
Cod. 48. 

t Ibid, iocrrrep kcu top A afivpivOov rives eneypayjrav 'Qpiyevovs. 



216 


CREED AND HERESIES 


Photius reports. Whatever, therefore, fixes the authorship of 
any of these, fixes the authorship of all. 

Notwithstanding, however, our threefold chance, we have 
only a solitary evidence on this point. Attached to Photius’s 
copy of the “ Treatise on the Universe ” was a note, to the 
effect that the book was not (as had been imagined) by Jo¬ 
sephus, but by Caius, the Roman presbyter, who also com¬ 
posed the “Labyrinth.”* In the absence of other external 
testimony, this judgment appears entitled to stand, unless the 
books themselves disclose some features at variance with the 
known character of Caius. 

But, it is said, such variance we do actually find. For 
while our work expressly appeals to the Apocalypse as the 
production of John, we know from Eusebius that Caius 
ascribed it to Cerinthus, and, in opposing himself to Monta- 
tiism, rejected the millenarian doctrine which is taught in the 
Revelations. This argument, we admit, would be decisive if 
its allegations were indisputable. It is curious, however, that 
<he one locus classicus ,f from which is inferred the presbyter’s 
repudiation of the Apocalypse, is confessedly ambiguous; and 
the charge it prefers against Cerinthus may amount to either 
of these two propositions; that he had composed the Book of 
Revelations and palmed it on the world as the production of 


* Biblioth. cod. 48; Lardner’s “Credibility,” Part II. ch. xxxii.; Bun¬ 
sen’s Hippolytus, I. p. 150. 

t Euseb. H. E., III. 28. dXXa Kai Krjpivdos , 6 bi d7roKaXv\f/ca>v c os vtt6 
dnoaroXov peyaXov yeypappev<ov TeparoXoyias rjpiv tos hi ayyeXoov 
avTqi bebeiypevas yfrevbopevos eneiadyeiy Xeycov, pera Trjv avaaraaiv 
enlyeeov emu to ftacriXeiov tov Xpiorov, Kai vraXiv emdvpiais^Kai rjbo- 
vais ev 'lepovauXrjp. rrjv aapKa TroXtTcvopevrjv bovXeveiv. Kai 
V7rap)(G>v rais ypaffials tov 6coi> apiQpov ^iXiovracrias ev yapco eoprrjs 
6eX(ov rrXavav Xeyei yiveaQai. The passage, preserving its obscurities, 
seems to run thus: “Cerinthus too, through the medium of revelations 
written as if by a great Apostle, has palmed off upon us marvellous accounts, 
pretending to have been shown him by angels; to the effect that, after the 
resurrection, the kingdom of Christ will be an earthly one, and that the flesh 
will again be at the head of affairs, and serve in Jerusalem the lusts and 
pleasures of sense. And with wilful misguidance he says, setting himself in 



OF EARLY CHRISTIANITY. 


217 


the Apostle John; or, that he had given himself the air of a 
great Apostle, and published accordingly some revelations 
affecting to be imparted, like those of John, by angels. Ac¬ 
cording to this last interpretation, the work of Cerinthus 
would be a book distinct from our Apocalypse, written in 
imitation of it, and seeking to share its authority. The con¬ 
tents of the production are briefly described by Caius ; but 
they present such a mixture of agreement and disagreement 
with our canonical book, as to leave the ambiguity unresolved. 
They affirm, that after the resurrection will follow an earthly 
kingdom of Christ, in which the lower nature of man will, in 
Jerusalem, be again in servitude to passion and pleasure; 
and that the number of a thousand years are to be spent in 
the indulgence of sense. So far as the place and the duration 
of the kingdom are concerned, our Apocalypse might here be 
referred to; but it has nothing answering to the description 
of a gross and luxurious millennium. Taking the passage in 
conjunction with the similar statement of Theodoret, that 
“ Cerinthus invented certain revelations, pretending that they 
were given in vision to himself,” we think it unlikely that our 
Apocalypse can be meant; and conceive the indictment to be, 
that Cerinthus had put forth a set of apocryphal visions, in 
which he abused the style and corrupted the teachings of a 
great Apostle to the purposes of a sensual fanaticism. This 


opposition to the Scriptures of God, that a period of a thousand years will be 
spent in nuptial festivities.” On this much-controverted passage, Lardner 
(Cred., P. II. ch. xxxii.) suspends his judgment, rather inclining to doubt 
whether our Apocalypse is referred to; Hug (Einl. § 176), Paulus (Hist. 
Cerinth., P. I. § 30), with Twells and Hartwig (whose criticisms we have not 
seen), deny that the Apocalypse is meant; while Eichhorn (Einl. in das 
N. T., VI. v. § 194. 2), De Wette (Lehrbuch der Einl. in d. N. T., § 192 a), 
Liicke (Commentar iib. d. Schriften des Ev. Johannes, Offenb. § 33), and 
Schwegler (Das nachapost. Zeitalter, 2er B. p. 218), take the other side. It 
must be confessed also, that, till the rise of the present discussion about the 
“ Philosophoumena,” Baur agreed with these last writers. (See his Christl. 
Lehre v. d. Dreieinigkeit, ler B. p. 283.) He now urges, however, that, in a 
case already so doubtful, the discovery of a lost book, which we have good 
reason to ascribe to Caius, necessarily brings in new evidence, and may turn 
the scale between two balanced interpretations. (Theol. Jahrb., p. 157.) 

19 



218 


CREED AND HERESIES 


is a charge which Caius might bring, in consistency with the 
fullest acceptance of the Apocalypse as authentic and true. 
It was not the doctrine of a reign of Christ on earth, not the 
millenarian period assigned to it, to which he objected in 
Cerinthus ; but the coarse and demoralizing picture given of 
its employments and delights. In proportion to his respect 
for the real Apocalypse and its teachings, would he be likely to 
resent such a miserable parody on its lofty theocratic visions. 
His opposition to the Montanists in no way pledged him to 
renounce the eschatological expectations which they were dis¬ 
tinguished from other Christians not by entertaining, but by 
exaggerating. If our work, in its notice of their heresy, 
passes by in silence this particular element of the system, 
and treats their claim to special gifts of prophecy with less 
contemptuous emphasis than might be looked for in the an¬ 
tagonist of Proclus, there is nothing that ought really to sur¬ 
prise us in this. It does not follow that, because in our scanty 
knowledge we have only one idea about an historical person¬ 
age, the man himself never had another. Caius did not live 
in a perpetual platform disputation with Proclus ; and either 
before that controversy had waked him up, or after it was 
well got over, he might naturally enough dismiss the Mon¬ 
tanists with very cursory notice; in the one case, because 
they had not yet adequately provoked his antipathy; in the 
other, because they had already had enough of it.* 

Nothing therefore presents itself in our work which should 
deter us from attributing it to Caius ; and the more we ponder 
the evidence, the more do we incline to believe it his. This 

* Baur explains the slight treatment of the Montanist heresy in the 
“ Philosophumena ” by the intention which Caius already had of writing a 
special book against them: and contends that this intention is announced 
expressly in the words (p. 276), 7 rep\ tovtwv avSis XcrTTopepecrepov e<6r]~ 
copai' noWol? yap a(f>oppr) KaKwv yeyevrjrai r) tovtoov alpecris- These 
words, however, do not refer, as the connection evidently shows, to the Mon¬ 
tanists generally; but only to a certain class of them who fell in with the 
patripassian doctrine of Noetus. The Noetian scheme Caius was going to 
discuss further on in this very book: and it is evidently to this later chapter, 
not to any separate work against Montanism, that he alludes. 



OF EARLY CHRISTIANITY. 


219 


result is to Us an unwelcome one; both because we know how 
strong the presumption must be against a critical judgment 
condemned by the masterly genius of M. Bunsen, and because 
he has really made us in love with his ecclesiastical hero, — has 
put such an innocent and venerable life into that old effigy, 
that after wandering with him about the quays of Portus, and 
entering with listening fancy into the Basilica* where he 
preached, it is hard to return him into stone, and think of him 
only as a dead bishop who made a bad almanac. Should our 
readers have contracted no such ideal attachment, we fear that 
this discussion of authorship may appear as trivial as it is 
tedious. Somebody wrote the “ Philosophumena,” and wheth¬ 
er we call him Hippolytus or Caius, whether we lodge him 
on the Tiber within sight of the Pharos , or of the MiUiarium 
Aureum, may seem a thing indifferent, so long as the elements 
of the personal image do not materially change. This utilita¬ 
rian impression is by no means just, and indeed is at variance 
with all true historical feeling. But it is time that we should 
give it its fair rights, and turn from the name upon our new 
book to its substances and significance. 

Many sensible persons are at a loss, we believe; to under¬ 
stand why this refutation of thirty-two extinct heresies should 
be regarded with so much interest. Is it so well done, then ? 
they ask. Far from it: better books are brought out every 
year; and such a controversial argument offered in manu¬ 
script to Mr. Longman or Mr. Parker to-morrow, would hard¬ 
ly be deemed worth the cost of printing. Does it add materi¬ 
ally to our knowledge of the early heresies ? Something of 
this kind it certainly contributes; but the gain is not large, 
and will make no essential change in the conclusions of any 
competent historical inquirer. Is any light thrown by it on 
the authenticity of our canonical books ? This can hardly be 
expected from a production of the third century; and M. 
Bunsen’s application of it to this purpose appears to us, for 


* The word is perhaps not allowable in speaking of the earliest time (the 
reign of Alexander Severus) assignable for the erection of separate build¬ 
ings appropriate to Christian worship. 



220 


CREED AND HERESIES 


reasons which we shall assign, extremely precarious. Per¬ 
haps it supplies the want which every student of that period 
must have felt, and organically joins ecclesiastical to civil his¬ 
tory, so that they no longer remain apart, — the one as the 
stage for saints and martyrs, bishops and books, the other for 
soldiers and senators, emperors and paramours, — but min¬ 
gle in the common life of humanity. When we think how 
the author was placed, it is impossible not to go to him with 
an eager hope of this nature. He lived at the centre of the 
vast Roman world, and felt all the pulsations and paroxysms 
of that mighty heart. He witnessed the ominous decline of 
every traditional maxim and national reverence in favor of 
imported superstitions and degenerate barbarities. Under 
Commodus he saw the ancient Mars superseded by the Gre¬ 
cian Hercules, and Hercules represented by an emperor who 
sunk into a prize-fighter, and the administration of the empire 
in the wanton hands of a Phrygian slave, who was only less 
brutal than his master. In the midst of pestilence, which had 
become chronic in Italy from the time of M. Antoninus, and 
of which a Christian bishop could not but know more than 
others, the city was still adding to its semblance of splendor 
and salubrity; and the magnificent baths and grounds that 
were opened to the public service at the Porta Capena, with 
the multiplied festivities and donatives, attested how little 
mere physical attention to the people can arrest the miseries 
of a moral degradation. Nor could the Christians of that 
age be wholly without insight into the habits of the highest 
class in Rome, for, in that great colluvies of heterogeneous 
faiths, the caprice of taste, if not some better impulse, deter¬ 
mined now and then an inmate of the palace to favor the re¬ 
ligion of Christ; and the favorite mistress of Commodus, who 
ruled him while she could, and then had him drugged and 
strangled in his sleep, is the very Marcia whom our presbyter 
describes as <{)i\ 60 eos , and at whose intervention the Christian 
exiles were released from their banishment in Sardinia. If he 
was at home when the excellent Pertinax was murdered, and 
cared to know what tyrant was to have the world instead, he 


OF EARLY CHRISTIANITY. 


221 


was perhaps in the throng that ran to the Quirinal, and heard 
the Pragtorians shout from their ramparts that the empire was 
for sale, and saw the bargain with the foolish senator below, 
who bought it with his money, and paid for it with his head. 
Caius and his people had reason to tremble when they saw in 
Septimius Severus not only the implacable conqueror who 
suffered no political opponent to live, but the worshipper of 
demons, the gloomy and fitful devotee of astrology and magic, 
pliant only to sacerdotal hate; and when the young Origen 
came to be their guest awhile, and told of the terror in Alex¬ 
andria which had joined his father to the band of martyrs, the 
post that just then brought the news of the Emperor’s death 
in Britain would seem to take off a weight of fear; especially 
as one son at least of the two inheritors of the empire had in 
childhood been committed to a Christian nurse, and been said 
to shrink and turn away from the savage spectacles of the am¬ 
phitheatre. They were doomed to be disappointed, if they 
had placed any hope in Caracalla, and to find that what they 
had taken in the boy for the nobleness of grace, was but the 
timidity of nature; the murder, before his mother’s face, of 
his only brother, and then of his best counsellor, for refusing 
to justify the fratricide, would soon make them ashamed of 
remembering that he had ever heard the name of Christ. It 
would be curious to know how the Christians comported them¬ 
selves when the Priest of the Sun became monarch of the 
world, and seemed intent on dethroning every divinity to en¬ 
rich the homage to his own. The grand temple on the Pal¬ 
atine, which he built for the god of Emesa, every passer-by 
must have seen as it rose from its foundations. And when 
the black stone was paraded on its chariot through the streets, 
and the elder deities were compelled to leave their shrines 
and attend in escort to the Eastern idol, or when the nuptials 
were celebrated between the Syrian divinity and the goddess 
of Carthage, and Baal-peor and Astarte succeeded to the hon¬ 
ors of Jove, no Christian presbyter could fail to witness the 
gorgeous and humiliating procession, — renewed as it was 
year by year, — or to ask himself into what deeper abomina- 
19 * 


222 


CREED AND HERESIES 


tion the city of the Scipios must sink, ere the catastrophe of 
judgment made a sudden end. The orgies of Ilelagabalus 
were more insulting to the elder Paganism of Rome than in* 
jurious to the new faith, which equally detested both ; and the 
offended moral feeling of the city reacted perhaps in favor of 
the Christian cause, and prepared the way for that more pub¬ 
lic teaching of the religion, in buildings avowedly dedicated 
to the purpose, which was first permitted in the succeeding 
reign. The natural recoil in the imperial family itself from 
the degradation of the court tended, perhaps, in the same di¬ 
rection, and drove the astute Mamaea to seek, amid the univer¬ 
sal corruption, for some school of discipline which might save 
the young Alexander Severus from the ignominy of her sis¬ 
ter’s son. Whether from this motive, or from suspicion of the 
growing force of Christianity as a social power, she had sent 
for Origen, and had an interview with him at Antioch; and 
the Roman disciples had reason to rejoice that her intellectual 
impressions of their system should have been derived from 
such a man, and her political estimate of it formed in the 
East, where the crisis of conflict between the dying and the 
living faiths was more advanced than in the West, and afford¬ 
ed a less disguised augury of the result. From their fellow- 
believers trading with the Levant, or arriving thence, the pas¬ 
tors of the metropolis would learn the propitious temper of 
the young Csesar and his mother; and would feel no surprise, 
when he succeeded to the palace of his cousin, that he not 
only swept out the ministers of lust and luxury, but in his pri¬ 
vate oratory enshrined, among the busts of Pagan benefactors, 
the images also of Abraham and of Christ. They could not, 
however, but observe how little the morals of the court and 
the wisdom of the government could now avail to arrest the 
progress of decay, and reach in detail the vices and miseries 
of a degenerate state. When they passed the door of the 
palace, they heard the public crier’s voice proclaim, “ Let only 
purity and innocence enter here ”; they visited a Christian 
tradesman in a neighboring street, and found him just seized 
by a nobleman whom he had dunned for an outstanding debt, 


OF EARLY CHRISTIANITY. 


223 


charged with magic or poisoning, doomed to pine in prison till 
he gave release, and no redress or justice to be had. The Em¬ 
peror who, gazing in his chapel on the features of Christ, rec¬ 
ognized a religion human and universal, was the first under 
whom a visible badge was put upon the slave, and a distinc¬ 
tive servile dress adopted; the slave markets were still in con¬ 
secrated spots, the temple of Castor and the Via Sacra; and 
if ever some captive Onesimus, recommended by letters from 
the East to the brethren in Rome, was brought to the metrop¬ 
olis for sale, thither must the deacon or the pastor go to find 
how the auction disposes of their charge, and learn which 
among the chalked feet it is that are “ shod with the prepa¬ 
ration of the Gospel of peace.” The commonwealth had 
never boasted of so many great jurists as in the age of Papin- 
ian and Paulus; but as the science of Law was perfected, the 
power of Law declined; and Alexander Severus, the justest 
of emperors, was unable to protect Ulpian, the greatest of 
civilians, from military assassination in the palace itself, or to 
punish the perpetrators of this outrage on popular feeling as 
well as public right. The three days’ tumult, in which this 
master of jurisprudence fell the victim of Praetorian licen¬ 
tiousness, our presbyter Caius must have witnessed; and 
countless other momentous scenes, during a generation pain¬ 
fully affluent in vicissitude, must have passed before his eyes; 
and had he but known of what value his reports would be to 
this age of ours, he would have said more of the life he saw, 
and less of the speculations he denounced. To us it would 
have been worth anything to know just what was too close to 
him to catch his eye; — how the Christians lived in such a 
world; what thoughts stirred in them as they walked the 
streets and heard the news; what happened and was said 
when they met together, and how this could adjust itself with 
the real facts of an inconsistent and tyrannical present; and 
how, as the corrupted State became ever more incapable of 
vindicating moral ends, the rising Church undertook the secret 
governance of life, and penetrated with its authority into re¬ 
cesses beyond the reach, not of the arm of administration 


224 


CREED AND HERESIES 


only, but of the definitions of the widest code. But in this 
respect also our author fails to realize our hopes. He gives 
us a book of fancies rather than of facts, and instead of paint¬ 
ing existence, which is transient, and must be caught as it 
flies, occupies himself in describing nonsense, which is always 
to be had. The enormities of Helagabalus, though staring 
him in the face, are nothing to him in comparison with heresy 
in Lesser Asia, which keeps Easter on a wrong day. He is 
shut up within the interior circle of the community of believ¬ 
ers, and gives but a single glimpse beyond; and builds for us 
no bridge to abolish the mysterious separation of ecclesiastical 
and ideal from civil and real existence in the early ages of 
our faith. He is not peculiar in this defect. We all of us 
live in the midst of history without knowing it, and ourselves 
make history without feeling it; and that which will most 
clearly paint us in the thought of other times, which will 
seem our power to them, our romance and nobleness, with 
which, therefore, they wifi most crave to satiate their eye, is 
precisely what is least consciously present to us, — the natural 
spirit and daily spring of our common being, through which 
not the will of man, but the providence of God, works its ap¬ 
pointed ends. At all events, the insight which we should be 
best pleased to gain into the life of the third century is not 
given even incidentally, except in the scantiest measure, by 
the “ Philosophumena,” which we must rank, in this respect, 
below the Apologies, and with the writings of Irenaeus and 
Epiphanius. The book is dogmatic and controversial, and 
the interest attached to it arises entirely from its being a reg¬ 
ister of opinion , a new witness to the thoughts about divine 
things, which the Christianity of its period owned and dis¬ 
owned. For those who care at all to know the state of belief 
a century before the Council of Nice, the work possesses a 
high value. But the worth of this sort of information is it¬ 
self a thing disputed, at least its religious worth; and will be 
very differently estimated, according to the preconception 
which occupies us as to the nature of Divine Revelation, and 
the sources open to us for the attainment of sacred truth. 


OF EARLY CHRISTIANITY. 


225 


Here it is that we find M. Bunsen’s great and peculiar 
strength. His religious philosophy, taken by itself, brings 
us occasionally to a pause of doubt. His historical criticism 
is not always convincing. But his doctrine of the relation 
between religion and history, of the mingling of divine and 
human elements in the theatre of time, and of the special 
agency of Christianity in the spiritual education of mankind, 
appears to us profoundly true and beautiful. This it is that 
makes him attach so much importance to the creed of the 
second and third centuries, and to the new light now thrown 
upon it; an importance which, from every ordinary point of 
view, can scarcely fail to appear fanciful and exaggerated. 

The Homan Catholic, for instance, entertains a conception 
about what sacred truth is, and how it is to be had, which, 
leaving nothing to depend on new discoveries, discharges all 
the richest interest from any fresh knowledge we may gain of 
.'religion in the past. With him divine truth, so far as it is 
special to Christendom, is something wholly foreign to the 
human mind, intrinsically unrelated to any faculty we have. 
In being supernatural, it belongs to another sphere than that 
to which our thought is restricted, and is totally withdrawn 
from all the movements of our nature. It consists, indeed, in 
a set of objective facts from which we are absent, and which 
no ratiocination of ours can seize, any more than our ear can 
tell whether there be music on Saturn’s ring. There is no 
human consciousness answering to it; and to resort thither for 
it is like asking the dreamer or the blindfold to describe the 
scene in which he stands, or consulting your own feelings to 
learn what is going on in Pekin or Japan. On this theory, 
the objects of faith are conceived of as objects of perception , 
only by senses otherwise constituted than ours; we can have 
no surmise about them, till they are announced to us by qual¬ 
ified percipients, and no comprehension of them even then, 
but only reception of them as facts imported for us from 
abroad. The bearing of this doctrine of invisible realism on 
the treatment of ecclesiastical history is manifest. The inac¬ 
cessible facts are deposited with the sacerdotal corporation > 


226 


CREED AND HERESIES 


with whom alone is vested the duty and the power of stating 
and defining them. They are not indeed all stated and de¬ 
fined in their last amplitude at once; for definition is always 
an enclosure of the true by exclusion of the false; and it is 
only in proportion as the dreaming perversity of men throws 
forth one delusive fancy after another, that the Church draws 
line after line to shut the intrusion out. If the creeds seem 
to enlarge as the centuries pass, it is not that they have more 
truth to give, but only more error to remove. The divine 
facts were conceived aright and conceived complete in the 
minds of Apostles and Evangelists, but they were not contem¬ 
plated then as against the follies and contradictions opposed to 
them in later times; but as soon as the hour came for this 
antagonism to be felt, the infallible perception secured in per¬ 
petuity to the living hierarchy supplied the due verdict of re¬ 
jection. To the Catholic, therefore, Christianity was made 
up and finished, its treasury was full, in the first generation ; 
its power of development is only the refusal of deviation; 
and its intellectual life is tame as the story of some perfect 
hero, who does nothing but stand still and repel temptations. 
The history of doctrines thus becomes a history of heresies; 
the primitive stock of tradition and Scripture must, on the one 
hand, be maintained entire in the face of all possible expos¬ 
ures by critical research; and, on the other, remain in eternal 
barrenness and produce no more. Natural knowledge, wheth¬ 
er of the world or of humanity, may grow continually, but 
the new thoughts it may lead us to entertain of God are ei¬ 
ther not new, or not true ; and every pretended enrichment of 
truth is nothing but evolution of falsehood. This removal of 
all variety from religion, this expulsion of life and change 
into the negative region of aberration and denial, eviscerates 
the past of its devout interest, rests the study of it on con¬ 
tempt instead of reverence for man ; with all its pious air, it 
simply betrays history with a kiss, and delivers it over for 
scribes to buffet and chief priests to crucify. Short work is 
made in this way of any fresh witness, like the author of our 
book, who turns up unexpectedly from an early age. Does 


OF EARLY CHRISTIANITY. 


227 


he speak in agreement with the hierarchical standards ? He 
only flings another voice into the consensus of obedient believ¬ 
ers. Does he say anything at variance with the regula Jidei? 
Then have we only to see in what class of heretics he stands. 
Ilis testimony is either superfluous or misleading. 

The Protestant, of the approved English type, arrives, 
under guidance of a different thought, at the same flat and in¬ 
different result. Though he gives a more subjective charac¬ 
ter to divine truth than the Roman Catholic, and brings both 
the want and the supply of it more within the attestation of 
consciousness, he puts its discovery equally beyond the reach 
of our ruined faculties, and equally cuts it off from all rela¬ 
tion to philosophy and the natural living exercise of reason 
and conscience. He further agrees that his foreign gift of 
revelation was imported all at once, and all complete, into our 
world, within the Apostolic age; that the conceptions of that 
time are an authoritative rule for all succeeding centuries ; 
and that every newer doctrine is to be regarded as a false 
accretion, to be flung off into the imcompotent and barren 
spaces of human speculation. He denies, however, the two¬ 
fold vehicle of this precious gift; and, cancelling altogether 
the oral tradition and indeterminate Christian consciousness 
of the early Church, shuts up the whole contents of religion 
within the canonical Scriptures. The guardianship of un¬ 
written tradition being abolished, and the canon requiring no 
guardianship at all, the trust deposited with the hierarchy 
disappears; and no permanent inspiration, no authoritative 
judicial function, in matters of faith, remains. Whatever 
Holy Spirit continues in the Church is not a progressively 
teaching spirit, which can ever impart thoughts or experiences 
unknown to the first believers; but a personally comforting 
and animating spirit, whose highest climax of enlightenment 
is the exact reproduction of the primitive state of mind. The 
apprehension of Divine truth is thus reduced to an affair of 
verbal interpretation of documents; and though in this pro¬ 
cess there is room for the largest play of subjective feeling, 
so that different minds, different nations, different ages, will 


228 


CREED AND HERESIES 


unconsciously evolve very various results; these are not to 
be regarded as possible Divine enrichments of the faith, but 
to be brought rigidly to the standard of the earliest Church, 
and disowned wherever they include what was absent there. 
This view is less mischievous than the Roman Catholic, only 
because it is more inconsequent and confused. The canon 
which you take as sacred was selected and set in authority 
by the unwritten consciousness and tradition which you reject 
as profane. The Church existed before its records; ex¬ 
pressed its life in w'ays spreading indefinitely beyond them; 
and neither was exempt from human elements till they were 
finished, nor lost the Divine spirit when they were done. So 
arbitrary a doctrine corrupts the beauty of Scripture, and 
deadens the noblest interest of history. If the New Testa¬ 
ment is to serve as an infallible standard, it is thus committed 
to perfect unity and self-consistency ; and you are obliged to 
contend that the various types of doctrine found within its 
compass — the Messianic conceptions of Matthew and John, 
the “Faith” of Paul and James, the eucharistic conceptions 
of the first Evangelists and the last, the eschatology of the 
Apocalypse and the Epistles — are only different sides of one 
and the same belief, colored with the tints and shadings of 
several minds. How utterly inadequate such an hypothesis 
is to the explanation of the Scriptural phenomena, what a 
distorted and absurd representation it gives of the sacred writ¬ 
ers, and their mode of thought, is best known to those who 
have honestly tried to deal with the fourth Gospel, for instance, 
as historically the supplement of the others, and dogmatically 
of the Book of Revelation; to suppose the Logos-doctrine 
tacitly present in the speeches of Peter; to detect the pre¬ 
existence in Mark, or rerqove it from John ; or to identify 
the Paraclete with the gifts pf Pentecost, All feeling of liv¬ 
ing reality is lost from our picture of the Apostolic time, when 
its outlines are thus blurred, jts contrasts destroyed, its grouped 
figures effaced, and the whole melted away by the perseverr 
ing drizzle of a watery criticism into a muddy glory round 
the place where Christ should be. If, moreover, we are to 


OF EARLY CHRISTIANITY. 


229 


find everything in the first age, then the second, and the 
third, and all others, must be worse, just in so far as they dif¬ 
fer from it; and the whole course of succeeding thought, the 
widening and deepening of the Christian faith and feeling, the 
swelling of its stream by the lapse into it of Oriental Gnosis 
and Hellenic Platonism and the Western Conscience, must 
be a ceaseless degeneracy. Thus to the Bibliolater as to the 
Romanist, Divine truth has no history among men , unless it be 
the history of decline, or of recovery purchased by decline. 
He also will accordingly care nothing about what the people 
of Caius or Hippolytus thought. Is it in the Bible ? If so, 
he knew it before. Is it not in the Bible ? Then he has noth¬ 
ing to do with it but throw it away. By a fitting retribution, 
this moping worship of the letter of a book and the creed 
of a generation brings it to pass that both are lost to the mind 
in a dismal haze of ignorance and misconception ; and if the 
“ Evangelical ” believer could be transported suddenly from 
Exeter Hall into the company of the twelve in Jerusalem, or 
the Proseucha which Paul enters on the banks of the Stry- 
mon, or the room where the Agape is prepared at Rome, we 
are persuaded that he would find a scene newer to his ex¬ 
pectations than by any other migration into a known time and 
place. 

But now let us abolish this isolation from the rest of human 
existence of the incunabula of our faith, and throw open that 
time to free relation with the whole providence of humanity. 
Suppose Christianity to be the influence upon the world of a 
Divine Person, — in quality divine, in quantity human,— 
whose Epiphany was determined at a crisis of ripe conditions 
for the rescue, the evolution, the spread of holy and sanctify¬ 
ing truth. What are those conditions ? They consist mainly 
in the co-presence, within the embrace of one vast state, of 
two opposite races or types of men, both having a partial gift 
of divine apprehension, and holding in charge an indispensa¬ 
ble element of truth; both with their spiritual life verging to 
exhaustion and capable of no separate effort more ; and each 
unconsciously pining away for want of the complement of 
20 


230 


CREED AND HERESIES 


thought which the other only could supply. The Hebrew 
brought his intense feeling of the Personality of God; con¬ 
ceiving this in so concentrated a form as to exclude the proper 
notion of infinitude, and render Him only the most powerful 
Being in the Universe, its Monarch, — wielding the creatures 
as his puppets, — acting historically upon its scenes as objec¬ 
tive to Him, and by the annals of his past agency supplying 
to the Abraliamic family a religion of archives and documents. 
The sovereignty of Jehovah raised him to an immeasurable 
height above his creation; dwarfed all other existence ; placed 
him by nature at a distance from men, and only by conde¬ 
scension allowing of approximation. And hence his worship¬ 
pers, in proportion as they adored his greatness, felt the little¬ 
ness of all else ; acquired a temper towards their fellow-men, 
if not severe and scornful, at least not reverent and tender; 
and regarded them as separate in kind from Him, mere dust 
on the balance or locusts in the field. The religion of the 
Hellenic race began at the other end, — from the midst of 
human life, its mysteries, its struggles, its nobleness, its mix¬ 
ture of heroic Free-will and awful Destiny; and their deepest 
reverence, their quickest recognition of the Divine, was di¬ 
rected towards the soul of a man vindicating its grandeur, 
though it should be against superhuman powers. In propor¬ 
tion as men were great, beautiful, and good, did they appear 
to be as lesser gods, and earth and heaven to be filled with 
the same race. Thought, conscience, admiration in the hu¬ 
man mind were not personal accidents separately originat¬ 
ing in each individual; but the sympathetic response of our 
common intellect, standing in front of Nature, to the kindred 
life of the Divine intellect behind Nature, and ever passing 
into expression through it. When this feeling of the Hellenic 
race became reflective, and organized itself into philosophy, it 
represented the universe as the eternal assumption of form by 
the Divine thought, which we were enabled to read off by 
our essential identity of nature. Hence a whole series ol 
conceptions quite different from the Hebrew representations ; 
instead of Creation, Evolution of being; instead of Interposi- 



OF EARLY CHRISTIANITY. 


231 


tion from without, Incarnation operating from within; instead 
of Omnipotent Will, Universal Thought; assigning as the 
ideal of man’s perfection, not so much obedience to Law, as 
similitude of Mind to God; and tending predominantly not to 
strength in Morals, but to beauty in Art. These two opposite 
tendencies had run their separate course, and expended their 
proper history; and were talking wildly, as in the approach¬ 
ing delirium of death. But they are the two factors of ail 
religious truth: and to fuse them together, to make it impos¬ 
sible that either should perish or should remain alone, the 
Christ was given to the world, so singularly balanced between 
them, that neither could resist his power, but both were drawn 
into it for the regeneration of mankind. In the accidents of 
his lot given to the one race, and only baffling the visions of 
prophets to transcend them; in the essence of his nature, so 
august and attractive to the other that the faith in Incarna¬ 
tion was irresistible; presented to the Hebrews by his mortal 
birth, and snatched from them by his immortal; stopping by 
his holiness the mouth of Law, and carrying it up into the 
higher region of Faith and Love; in the Temple wishing the 
Temple gone, that there might be open communion, Spirit 
with Spirit; translating sacrifice into self-sacrifice ; — he had 
every requisite for conciliating and blending the separated 
elements of truth which, for so many ages, had been converg¬ 
ing towards him. But if this was the function providentially 
assigned to him, and for which the divine and human were 
so blended in him, it is a function which could not be accom¬ 
plished in a moment, in a generation, in a century. It is an 
historical function, freely demanding time for its theatre ; and 
as the separate factors had occupied ages in attaining their 
ripeness for combination, so must their fusion consume many 
a lifetime of effervescing thought, ere the homogeneous truth 
appeared. The words of Christ arc not in this view the end 
in which Revelation terminates; but the means given to us 
of knowing himself, contributions to the picture we form of 
his personality. Nor are the sentiments of his immediate 
followers about his office and position in the scheme of Prov- 


232 


CREED AND HERESIES 


idence anything more authoritative to us than the incipient 
attempts made, when his influence was fresh, to grasp the 
whole of his relations while only a part was to be seen. The 
records of the great crisis are no doubt of superlative value, 
as the vehicles by which alone we understand and feel its 
power; but their value is lost if they are to dictate truth to 
our passive acceptance, instead of quickening our reason and 
conscience to find it: they stop in this way the very develop¬ 
ment which they were to lead, and disappoint Christ of the 
very work he came to achieve. Human elements were in¬ 
evitably and fully present in the first age and its Scriptures, 
as in every other; and the transitory ingredients they have 
left, it is a duty to detach from the eternal truth. And as 
conditions of finite imperfection cannot be banished from the 
central era, neither can the guidance of the Infinite Spirit be 
denied, whether among the Hebrew, the Hellenic, or the 
Christian people, in the ages before and after. In that new 
development of human consciousness and knowledge in regard 
to God, which we call Christianity, all the requisite condi¬ 
tions — viz. the factors taken up, the Person who blends them, 
and the continuous product they evolve — include Divine 
Inspiration as well as Human Reflection, — the living pres¬ 
ence and communion of the Eternal with the Transitory Mind, 
of the perfectly Good with the good in the Imperfect. To 
disengage the one from the other, to treasure up the true 
and holy that is born of God, and let fall the false and wrong 
that is infused by man, is possible only to Reason and Con¬ 
science, is indeed the perpetual work in which they live; the 
denial of which is not merely Atheism, but Devil-worship, — 
not the bare negation, but the positive reversal, of religion, — 
the virtual affirmation that God indeed exists , but exists as 
£7h-reason and Cfo-good. No mechanical, no chronological 
separation can be effected of the Divine from the Human, the 
Revealed from the Unrevealed, in faith; there is no person, 
no book, no age, no Church, in which both do not meet, and 
require to be disentangled the one from the other; but the 
perseverance of God’s living and self-harmonious Spirit 


OF EAIILY CHRISTIANITY. 


233 


throughout the discordant errors of dying generations enables 
the men most apt and faithful to his voice to know more and 
more what his reality is, and drop the semblances by which 
it is disguised. The effect of this view on our estimate of 
ecclesiastical literature is evident. As, according to it, the 
Apostolic period is not exempted from critical judgment, so 
neither are succeeding times to be without their claim on re¬ 
ligious reverence. The canonical books of the New Testa¬ 
ment fall back into the general mass of literature recording 
the earliest knowledge and consciousness of the disciples, 
neither detached, as a mysterious whole, from other produc¬ 
tions of their time, nor excluding the greatest diversities of 
value among themselves. They exhibit the first struggling 
efforts — not always concurrent in their direction — of an 
awakening spiritual life, to interpret a recent Divine manifes¬ 
tation, and to solve by it the problem of the world’s Provi¬ 
dence. Their very freshness and proximity to the great fig¬ 
ure of Christ was by no means an unmixed advantage to these 
efforts; and they were not so complete and successful as to 
supersede their continuance in the next and following gener¬ 
ations, which lay under no incompetency for their prosecution, 
and are as likely, so far as antecedent probability goes, to * 
have enriched and improved, as to have impoverished and 
spoiled, the earlier doctrine of Christ’s relation to God and to 
mankind. The chasm thus disappears between the Apostolic 
age and its successor; the products of the first are not to be 
accepted simply because they are there, nor those of the sec¬ 
ond rejected because they are absent from the first; nor is 
everything to be admitted on showing that it stands in both, 
and even had a tenure long enough to become the prescriptive 
occupant of the Church. The Catholic is right in clinging to 
the continuous thread of Divine Inspiration binding the cen¬ 
turies of Christendom together; and in maintaining that the 
expression of true doctrine grows fuller with time. He is 
wrong in making the Spirit over to an hierarchical corpora¬ 
tion ; and in treating the ostensible growth of doctrine as the 
mere negation of heresies. The Protestant is right in rescu- 
20 * 


234 


CREED AND HERESIES 


ing from the haze of uncertain tradition the real historical 
ground of his religion, and setting it in the focus of an intense 
reverence ; and in rejecting whatever cannot be adjusted with 
the clear facts and essential Spirit of that primitive Gospel* 
He is wrong in his insulation of that time as a sole authorita¬ 
tive age of golden days, in which the faith had neither error 
nor defect, and from which it must be copied, with daguerreo¬ 
type exactitude, into every disciple’s mind. Keep the positive 
elements, destroy the negative limitations of both these sys¬ 
tems, and the true conception of Christianity emerges. As a 
system of self-conscious doctrine, it is a religious Philosophy, 
starting from the historical appearance of Christ as an ex¬ 
pression of God in human life, and always detained around 
this one object as its centre; and in its development consult¬ 
ing not the idiosyncrasies and conceits of private and personal 
reflection, but the devout consciousness and spiritual consensus 
of all Christian ages and all holy men. All religion is the 
product of an action of the Infinite mind upon the finite: in 
the Christian religion that action takes place upon souls en¬ 
gaged in the contemplation of Christ as the manifestation of 
God’s moral nature. This given object remaining the same, 
there is room for indefinite expansion and variety ; and every 
developed form is to be tried, not by its date, but by the tests 
of truth relevant to religious philosophy. 

How far M. Bunsen would recognize his own doctrine in 
this exposition we cannot say; but without intending in the 
least to make him responsible for it, we think it does not es¬ 
sentially deviate from his scheme of thought. The philosoph¬ 
ical aphorisms in which he has embodied his speculative faith 
follow an order which we should have spoiled, had we, for our 
present purpose, so brought them together as to make them 
speak for themselves. And though they display the same 
astonishing command of our language, in which the author 
never fails, the cast of the thoughts is so Teutonic, that few 
English readers, it is to be feared, will appreciate their depth 
and richness. The complaint, which we have heard and seen, 
that they are wholly unintelligible, is indeed purely ridiculous, 


OF EARLY CHRISTIANITY. 


235 


except that it sadly illustrates the extent to which reflection, 
and even feeling, on such subjects has ceased in England. M. 
Bunsen, we can assure our readers, knows what he means, 
and lucidly states what he means; and those who miss his 
meaning have for the most part no slight loss. The following 
sentences, which the greatest sufferer from philosophobia may 
drink in without convulsions, will explain his idea of Revela¬ 
tion, in its bearing upon the use of written records. The 
mere “ Natural Religion ” of the Deist, he observes, was — 

“ The negative reaction against the equally untenable, un- 
philosophical, and irrational notion, that revelation was noth¬ 
ing but an external historical act. Such a notion entirely 
loses sight of the infinite or eternal factor of revelation, found¬ 
ed both in the nature of the infinite and that of the finite 
mind, of God and man. 

“ This heterodox notion became still more obnoxious, by its 
imagining something higher in the manifestation of God’s 
will and being than the human mind, which is the divinely- 
appointed organ of divine manifestation, and in a double man¬ 
ner ; ideally in mankind, as object, historically in the individ¬ 
ual man, as instrument. 

“The notion of a merely historical revelation by written 
records is as unliistorical as it is unintellectual and materialis¬ 
tic. It necessarily leads to untruth in philosophy, to unreality 
in religious thought, and to Fetichism in worship. It misun¬ 
derstands the process necessarily implied in every historical 
representation. The form of expressing the manifestation of 
God in the mind, as if God was himself using human speech 
to man, and was thus himself finite and a man, is a form in¬ 
herent in the nature of human thought as embodied in lan¬ 
guage, its own rational expression. It was originally never 
meant to be understood materialistically, because the religious 
consciousness which produced it was essentially spiritual; 
and, indeed, it can only be thus misunderstood by those who 
make it a rule and criterion of faith, never to connect any 
thought whatever with what they are expected to believe as 
divinely true. 


236 


CREED AND HERESIES 


“ Every religion is positive. It is, therefore, justly called a 
religion ‘ made manifest ’ (offenbart), or, as the English term 
has it, revealed; that is to say, it supposes an action of the in¬ 
finite mind, or God, upon the finite mind, or man, by which 
God, in his relation to man, becomes manifest or visible. 
This can be mediate, through the manifestation of God in the 
Universe of Nature; or a direct, immediate action, through 
the religious consciousness. 

“ This second action is called revealed , in the strictest sense. 
The more a religion manifests of the real substance and na¬ 
ture of God, and of his relation to the universe and to man, 
the more it deserves the name of a divine manifestation, or of 
Revelation. But no religion which exists could exist -without 
something of truth, revealed to man, through the creation, 
and through his mind. 

“ Such a direct communication of the Divine mind as is 
called Revelation has necessarily two factors, which are unit¬ 
edly working in producing it. The one is the infinite factor, 
or the direct manifestation of eternal truth to the mind, by 
the power which that mind has of perceiving it; for human 
perception is the correlate of divine manifestation. There 
could be no revelation of God if there was not the corre¬ 
sponding faculty in the human mind to receive it, as there is 
no manifestation of light where there is no eye to see it. 

“ This infinite factor is, of course, not historical; it is inhe¬ 
rent in every individual soul, only with an immense difference 
in the degree. 

“ The action of the Infinite upon the mind, is the miracle of 
history and of religion, equal to the miracle of creation. 

“ Miracle, in its highest sense, is therefore essentially and 
undoubtedly an operation of the Divine mind upon the human 
mind. By that action the human mind becomes inspired with 
a new life, which cannot be explained by any precedent of the 
selfish (natural) life, but is its absolute contrary. This mira¬ 
cle requires no proof; the existence and action of religious 
life is its proof, as the world is the proof of creation. 

“ The second factor of revelation is the finite or external. 


OF EARLY CHRISTIANITY. 


237 


This means of divine manifestation is, in the first place, a uni¬ 
versal one, the Universe or Nature. But, in a more special 
sense, it is a historical manifestation of divine truth through 
the life and teaching of higher minds among men. These 
men of God are eminent individuals, who communicate some¬ 
thing of eternal truth to their brethren; and, as far as they 
themselves are true, they have in them the conviction, that 
what they say and teach of things divine is an objective truth. 
They therefore firmly believe that it is independent of their 
individual personal opinion and impression, and will last, and 
not perish, as their personal existence upon earth must. 

“ The difference between Christ arid other men of God is 
analogous to that between the manifestation of a part, and of 
the totality and substance, of the divine mind.” — Yol. II. p. 
60, seq. 

The newly-found work, like other productions of the same 
period, can have only a disturbing interest for the Roman 
Catholic and Orthodox Protestant. For, in conjunction with 
previous evidence, it shows that the unbroken unity of teach¬ 
ing is altogether a fiction; that what afterwards became here¬ 
sy was, in the latter part of the second century, held in the 
church of the primacy itself, and by successors of St. Peter; 
that the clergy of Rome, so far from owning the apostolic au¬ 
thority of their chief, could resist him as heterodox; and that 
the contents of the Catholic system, far from appearing as an 
invariable whole from the first, were a gradual synthesis of 
elements flowing in from new channels of influence brought 
into connection with the faith; and as against the approved 
type of Protestant, it shows that his favorite scheme of dog¬ 
ma was still in a very unripe state, and that further back it 
had been still more so; so that if he binds himself to the ear¬ 
liest creed, he may probably have to accept a profession 
which he hardly regards as Christian at all. But from the 
third point of view, which assumes that development is an in¬ 
herent necessity in a revelation, and may add to its truth, in¬ 
stead of subtracting from it, the monuments of Christian liter¬ 
ature from the secondary period have a positive interest, free 


238 


CREED AND HERESIES 


from all uneasiness and alarm. They arrest for us, in the 
midst, the advance of theological belief towards the form ulti¬ 
mately recognized in the Church, and expressed in the estab¬ 
lished creeds; they render visible the beautiful features and 
expanded look of the faith, when its Judaic blood had been 
cooled by the waters of an Hellenic baptism; and though 
they leave many undetermined problems as to the successive 
steps by which the original Hebrew type of the Gospel in Je¬ 
rusalem was metamorphosed into the Nicene and hierarchical 
Christianity, they fix some intermediate points, and make us 
profoundly conscious of the greatness of the change. 

The author of the “ Philosophumena,” for instance, would 
be stopped at the threshold of every sect in our own country, 
and excluded as heterodox. He crosses the lines of our theo¬ 
logical definitions, and trespasses on forbidden ground, in 
every possible doctrinal direction. Cardinal Wiseman would 
have nothing to say to him; for he is insubordinate to the 
“ Vicar of Christ,” and profanely insists that a pope may be 
deposed by his own council of presbyters. The Bishop of 
Exeter would refuse him institution; for his Trinity is imper¬ 
fect, and he allows no Personality to the Holy Ghost. The 
Archbishop of Dublin might probably think him a little hard 
upon Sabellius ; but, if he would quietly sign the Articles, 
(which, however, he could by no means do,) might abstain 
from retaliation, and let him pass. At Manchester, Canon 
Stowell would keep him in hot water for his respectable opin¬ 
ion of human nature, and his lofty doctrine of free-will. In 
Edinburgh, Dr. Candlish would not listen to a man wdio had 
nothing to say of reliance on the imputed merits of Christ. 
The sapient board at New College, St. John’s Wood, would 
expel him for his loose notions of Inspiration. And the Uni¬ 
tarians would find him too transcendental, make no com¬ 
mon sense out of his notions of Incarnation, and recommend 
him to try Germany. This fact, that a bishop of the second 
and third centuries would be ecclesiastically not a stranger 
only, but an outcast among us, is most startling; and ought 
surely to open the eyes of modern Christians to the false and 


OF EARLY CHRISTIANITY. 


239 


dangerous position into which their churches have been brought 
by narrow-heartedness and insincerity. It will not be M. 
Bunsen’s fault if our Churchmen remain insensible to the 
national peril and disgrace of maintaining unreformed a sys¬ 
tem long known to have no heart of modern reality, and now 
seen to have as little ground of ancient authority. Again 
and again he raises his voice of earnest and affectionate warn¬ 
ing. As a foreigner domesticated among us, as a scholar of 
wide historical view, as a philosophical statesman who, amid 
the diplomacy of the hour, descends to the springs of peren¬ 
nial life in nations, as a Christian who profoundly trusts the 
reality of religion, and cannot be dazzled by the pretence, he 
sees, with a rare clearness and breadth, both the capabilities 
and the dangers of our social and spiritual condition. He 
sees that God has given to the English people a moral mas¬ 
siveness and veracity of character which presents the grand¬ 
est basis of noble faith ; while learned selfishness and aristo¬ 
cratic apathy uphold in the Church creeds which only stupid¬ 
ity can sign without mental reservations,—a Liturgy that 
catches the scruple of the intellectual without touching the 
enthusiasm of the popular heart, — a laity without function, — 
a clergy without unity, — and a hierarchy without power. 
He sees that our insular position has imparted to us a distinc¬ 
tive nationality of feeling, supplying copious elements for coa¬ 
lescence in a common religion; while obstinate conservatism 
has permitted our Christianity to become our great divisive 
power, and to disintegrate us through and through. He re¬ 
spects our free institutions, which sustain the health of our 
political life; but beside them he finds an ecclesiastical sys¬ 
tem either imposed by a dead and inflexible necessity, or left 
unguided to a whimsical voluntaryism, which separates the 
combinations of faith from the relations of neighborhood, of 
municipality, of country. With noble and richly-endowed 
universities at the exclusive disposal of the Church, he finds 
the theological and philosophical sciences so shamefully neg¬ 
lected, that Christian faith notoriously does not hold its intel¬ 
lectual ground, and in its retreat does nothing to reach a firm- 


240 


CREED AND HERESIES 


er position ; but only protests its resolution to stand still, and 
raise a din against the critic or metaphysic host that drives it 
back. Is there no one in this great and honest country that 
has trust enough in God and truth, foresight enough of ruin 
from falsehood and pretence, to lay the first hand to the work 
of renovation? Is statesmanship so infected with negligent 
contempt of mankind, that no. high-minded politician can be 
found to care for the highest discipline of the people, and re¬ 
organize the institutions in which their conscience, their rea¬ 
son, their upward aspirations, should find life? Has the 
Church no prophet with faith enough to fling aside creed and 
college, and fire within him to burn away mediaeval pedantries, 
and demand an altar of veracity, that may bring us together 
for common work and “ common prayer ” ? Or is it to be left 
to the strong men , exulting in their strength, and storming 
with the furor of honest discontent, to settle these matters 
with the sledge-hammer of their indignation? Miserable 
hypocrisy ! to open the lips and lift the eyes to heaven, while 
beckoning with the finger of apathy to these pioneers of Ne¬ 
cessity! Would that some might be found to lay to heart 
our author’s warning and counsel in the following sentences: — 
“ While we exclude all suggestions of despair, as being 
equally unworthy of a man and of a Christian, we establish 
two safe principles. The first is, that, in all congregational 
and ecclesiastical institutions, Christian freedom, within limits 
conformable to Scripture, constitutes the first requisite for a 
vital restoration. The second fundamental principle is, that 
every Church must hold fast what she already possesses, in so 
far as it presents itself to her consciousness as true and effi¬ 
cacious. In virtue of the first condition, she will combine 
Reason and Scripture in due proportions; by virtue of the 
second, she will distinguish between Spirit and Letter, be¬ 
tween Idea and Form. No external clerical forms and me¬ 
diaeval reflexes of bygone social and intellectual conditions 
can save us, nor can sectarian schisms and isolation from 
national life. Neither can learned speculations, and still less 
the incomparably more arrogant dreams of the unlearned. 


OF EARLY CHRISTIANITY. 


241 


Scientific consciousness must dive into real life, and refresh 
itself in the feelings of the people, and that no one will be 
able to do without having made himself thoroughly conver¬ 
sant with the sufferings and the sorrows of the lowest classes 
of society. For out of the feeling of these sufferings and 
sorrows, as being to a great degree the most extensive and 
most deep-seated product of evil, — that is, of selfishness,— 
arose, eighteen hundred years ago, the divine birth of Christi¬ 
anity. The new birth, however, requires new pangs of labor, 
and not only on the part of individuals, but of the whole na¬ 
tion, in so far as she bears within her the germs of future life, 
and possesses the strength to bring forth. Every nation must 
set about the work herself, not, indeed, as her own especial 
exclusive concern, but as the interest of all mankind. Every 
people has the vocation to coin for itself the divine form of 
Humanity, in the Church as well as in the. State ; its life de¬ 
pends on this being done, not its reputation merely; it is the 
condition of existence, not merely of prosperity. 

“ Is it not time, in truth, to withdraw the veil from our mis¬ 
ery ? to point to the clouds which rise from ail quarters, to 
the noxious vapors which have already well-nigh suffocated 
us ? to tear off* the mask from hypocrisy, and destroy that 
sham which is undermining all real ground beneath our feet ? 
to point out the dangers which surround, nay, threaten already 
to engulf us ? Is the state of things satisfactory in a Chris¬ 
tian sense, where so much that is unchristian predominates, 
and where Christianity has scarcely begun here and there to 
penetrate the surface of the common life ? Shall we be sat¬ 
isfied with the increased outward respect paid to Christianity 
and the Church ? Shall we take it as a sign of renewed life, 
that the names of God and Christ have become the fashion, 
and are used as a party badge ? Can a society be said to be 
in a healthy condition, in which material and selfish interests 
in individuals, as well as in the masses, gain every day more 
and more the upper hand ? in which so many thinking and 
educated men are attached to Christianity only by outward 
forms, maintained either by despotic power, or by a not less 
21 


242 


CREED AND HERESIES 


despotic, half-superstitious, half-hypocritical custom ? when 
so many churches are empty, and satisfy but few, or display 
more and more outward ceremonials and vicarious rites ? 
when a godless schism has sprung up between spirit and 
form, or has even been preached up as a means of rescue ? 
when gross ignorance or confused knowledge, cold indiffer¬ 
ence or the fanaticism of superstition, prevails as to the un¬ 
derstanding of Holy Scripture, as to the history, nay, the fun¬ 
damental ideas of Christianity ? when force invokes religion 
in order to command, and demagogues appeal to the religious 
element in order to destroy ? when, after all their severe 
chastisements and bloody lessons, most statesmen base their 
wisdom only on the contempt of mankind ? and when the 
prophets of the people preach a liberty, the basis of which is 
selfishness, the object libertinism, and the wages are vice ? 
And this in an age the events of which show more and more 
fatal symptoms, and in which a cry of ardent longing pervades 
the people, re-echoed by a thousand voices ! ” — III. xv. 

Sorry, however, as we should be to see our Roman presby¬ 
ter disconsolately wandering from fold to fold in modern 
England, and dismissed as a black sheep from all, we should 
not like to find him metamorphosed into chief shepherd ei¬ 
ther, and invested with the guidance of our ecclesiastical affairs. 
Though he is above imitating the feeble railing of Irenasus at 
the heresies, he deals with them in the true clerical style; 
often missing their real meaning, he does not spare them his 
bad word ; and fancies he has killed them before he has even 
caught them. He has an evident relish also for a tale of 
scandal, as a make-weight against a theological opponent. In 
the “ Little Labyrinth,” he had told us a story about a Unita¬ 
rian minister, who, for accepting his schismatical office, had 
been horsewhipped by angels all night; so that he crawled in 
the morning to the metropolitan, and gave in his penitential 
recantation. And now, in the larger work, the author flies at 
higher game, and makes out that Pope Callistus was an in¬ 
corrigible scamp; originally a slave in the household of a 
wealthy Christian master, Carpophorus, whose confidence he 


OF EARLY CHRISTIANITY. 


243 


abused in every possible way. First, having been intrusted 
with the management of a bank in the Piscina publica , he 
swindled and ruined the depositors, and decamped, with the 
intention of sailing from Portus, but was found on board ship; 
and, though he jumped into the sea to avoid capture, was 
picked up, and condemned by his master to the hand-mill. 
Next, being allowed to go out, on the plea of collecting some 
debts which would enable him to pay a dividend to the de¬ 
positors, he created a riot in a Jews’ synagogue, and, "being 
brought before the prefect, was sentenced to be flogged and 
transported to Sardinia. Thence he escaped by passing him¬ 
self off among a number of Christians, released from their 
exile through the influence of the Emperor’s concubine, Mar¬ 
cia, and on the recommendation of Victor, the Pope. As he 
was not included in the list of pardons, he no sooner made his 
appearance in Pome than his master sent him off to live on a 
monthly allowance at Antium. On the death of Carpophorus, 
he seems to have attained his freedom by bequest; and his 
fertility of resource having made him useful to the new Pope 
Zephyrinus, he acquired influence enough to succeed him in 
the Primacy. We must confess that the evident gusto with 
which our presbyter tells this scandal, the animus with which 
he accuses Zephyrinus also of stupidity and venality, and the 
predominance in his narrative of theological antipathy over 
moral disgust, leave a painful impression on the reader re¬ 
specting the spirit then at work in the Apostolic See. And 
though his scheme of belief, especially in relation to the per¬ 
son of Christ, was more rational than the definitions of more 
modern creeds, yet we fear that he would be not less nice 
about its shape, and intolerant of those who move about in 
freer folds of thought, than a divine of the Canterbury clois¬ 
ters or the Edinburgh platform. His quarrel with the two 
popes whom he abuses shows pretty clearly the stage of de¬ 
velopment which the Christian theology had then reached. 
On this matter we must say a few words. 

Whatever may have been the precise order of combination 
which brought the Hebrew and Hellenic ideas of God into 


244 


CREED AND HERESIES 


union, there can be no doubt about the two termini of the pro¬ 
cess. It started from the monarchical conception of Jehovah, 
as a Unity without plurality; and it issued in the Athanasian 
Trinity, with its three hypostases in one essence. Of these, 
the Father expressed the Absolute existence, the Son the 
Objective manifestation, the Holy Spirit the Subjective reve¬ 
lation of God. In the presbyter’s creed, the third term was 
not yet incorporated, but still floated freely, diffused and im¬ 
personal. Leaving this out of view, we may observe, in the 
remaining part of the doctrine, two principal difficulties to be 
surmounted, arising from the double medium of divine objec¬ 
tive manifestation, — Nature, always proceeding, —and Christ, 
historically transient. The first problem is, How to pass at 
all out of the Infinite existence into Finite phenomena, and 
conceive the relation between the Father and the Son ; the 
second, How to pass from Eternal manifestation through all 
phenomena into temporary appearance in an Individual, so as 
to conceive the relation between the Son and the Galilean 
Christ. Thus, excluding all reference to the Holy Spirit, 
there were, in fact, four objects of thought, whose relations 
to one another were to be adjusted ; viz. the Father, the Son 
evolving all things, the Christ or divine individualization in the 
Gospel, and Jesus of Nazareth, the human being with whose 
life this individualization concurred. Among all these there 
were, so to speak, two clearly distinct Wills to dispose of; 
that of the man Jesus at the lowest extremity, and that of the 
Supreme God, which the Jew, at least, would fix at the upper. 
These two Wills act, in the whole development of doctrine' 
on this subject, as the secret centres of Personality; and the 
remaining elements obtain or miss a hypostatic character ac¬ 
cording as they are drawn or not into coalescence with the 
one or the other. The volitional point of the Divine Agency 
being once determined, it may be regarded as enclosed be¬ 
tween the Thought , or intellectual essence out of which it 
comes, and the Execution by which it is realized; or it may 
be left undistinguished from these, and may be made to coin¬ 
cide with either. According to these variable conditions arise 


OF EARLY CHRISTIANITY. 


245 


the several modes of doctrine in reference to the Divine ele¬ 
ment in God’s Objective manifestation. The differences, for 
instance, between our presbyter’s doctrine and Origen’s, will 
be found to depend on the different points which they seize as 
the seat of divine volition, and the germ of their logical de¬ 
velopment. Our author, exemplifying the Hebrew tendency, 
seeks his initiative up at the fountain-head, and puts himself 
back before the first act of creation; he starts from the One 
God, with whom nothing was co-present, and fixes in Him the 
seat of the primeval Will. There, however, it would remain, 
a mere potentiality, did not the Eternal Mind, by reflection in 
itself, pass into self-consciousness, and give objectivity to its 
own thought. This primary expression of his essence, in 
which it enters into relation, but relation only to itself, is the 
Logos , or Son of God, the agent in the production of all 
things. The potentiality is thus reserved to the Father; the 
effectuation is given to the Son; who, coming in at a point 
lower down than the seat of Will, and simply bridging over 
the interval that leads to accomplishment, is felt without the 
essential condition of a numerically distinct subsistence; and 
has either the instrumental and subordinate personality of a 
dependent being, or is imperfectly liypostatized.* In this im¬ 
personal character does the Logos manifest the Divine thought 
in the visible universe; in the minds of godly men, which are 
the source of law; in the glance of prophets, which catches 
and interprets the divine significance of all times; and first 
assumes a full personality in the Incarnation. Having left 
the primary Will behind in the Father’s essence, the Logos 
remains but an inchoate hypostasis, till alighting, in the human 
nature, on another centre of volition. As if our author were 
half conscious, in reaching this point, of relief from an ante¬ 
cedent uneasiness, he now holds fast to the personality which 
has been realized, represents it as not dissolved by the death 

* To Hippolytus and the writers of his period, Dorner ascribes the latter, 
preponderantly over the former, side of this alternative; while Hanell charges 
their view with Sabellianism. See Dorner’s “ Entwickelungsgeschichte der 
Lehre von der Person Christi,” I. p. 611, seq. 

21 * _ _ 



246 


CREED AND HERESIES 


on the cross, but taken up into heaven, and abiding for ever. 
It is, in this view, the two extreme terms that supply the hy- 
postatizing power; of the others,•the Logos has no personal¬ 
ity but by looking back to the Father ; nor the Christ, but by 
going forward to the Son of Mary. This shows the yet pow¬ 
erful influence of the Judaic Monarcliianism, and the embar¬ 
rassment of a mind, setting out from that type of faith, to 
provide any plurality within the essence of God. Origen, on 
the other hand, yielded to the Hellenic feeling, and, instead of 
going back to any absolute commencement, looked for his 
Divine centre and starting-point further down; and took 
thence whatever upward glance was needful to complete his 
view. As the Greek reverence was not touched but by the 
Divine embodied in concrete life and form, so the Alexan¬ 
drine catechist instinctively fixed upon the Son, the objective 
Thought of God, proceeding, not once upon a time or ever 
first , but eternally , from Him, as the initiative position for his 
doctrine. Here was placed the clearest and intensest focus of 
Will; and only in this ever-evolving efficient were the full 
conditions of personality realized. The Father was conceived 
more pantheistically, as the universal vovs, the intellectual 
background, whence issued the acting nature of the Son. In 
meditating on them in their conjunction, Origen would think 
of the relation between thought and volition; our author, of 
that between volition and execution. Both doctrines show 
the imperfect fusion of Hebrew and Hellenic elements, and 
illustrate the characteristic effect of an excessive proportion of 
each. Where the Hebrew element prevails, the personality 
of the Son is endangered ; where the Hellenic, the personality 
of the Father. Even our presbyter’s doctrine of the Son, 
however, gave too strong an impersonation to Him for the 
party in Rome who sided with Zephyrinus and Callistus. 
These popes accused him, it seems, of being a Ditheist; and 
themselves maintained that the terms Father and Son denoted 
only different sides and relations of one and the same Being, — 
nay, not only of the same Being, but of the same irpoaoiTvou ; 
and that the spirit that dwelt in Christ was the Father, of 


OF EARLY CHRISTIANITY. 


247 


whom all things are full. For this opinion the two popes are 
angrily dealt with by our author, and charged with being half 
Sabeilian, half humanitarian. His rancor justifies the sus¬ 
picion, that, though he represents the party which triumphed 
at Rome, his opponents had been numerous and powerful, as, 
indeed, their election to the primacy w r ould of itself show, and 
that even his own imperfect dogma was superinduced, not 
without a protracted struggle, upon an earlier faith yet remote 
from the Nicene standard. 

And this brings us at once to a question of historical re¬ 
search, which, though far too intricate and extensive to be dis¬ 
cussed here, we feel bound to notice, as far as it is affected by 
the newly discovered work. How long did it take for the 
Christian faith to assume the leading features of its orthodox 
and catholic form, and especially to work itself clear of Juda¬ 
ism ? It is an acknowledged fact, that the earliest disciples, 
including at the lowest estimate all the converts of the first 
seven years from the ascension, not only were born Hebrews, 
but did not regard their baptism as in any way withdrawing 
them from the pale of their national religion ; that, on th^ con¬ 
trary, they claimed to be the only true Jews, differing from 
others simply by their belief in a personally appointed, in¬ 
stead of a vaguely promised Messiah ; that they aimed at no 
more than to bring over their own race to this conviction, and 
persuade them that the national destinies were about to be 
consummated, and, so far from relaxing the obligations of 
their Law, adhered with peculiar rigor to its ritual and its 
exclusiveness. So long as none but the twelve Apostles had 
charge of its diffusion, Christianity was only a particular mode 
of* Judaism, and its whole discussion a Cn Tr l cris *Iou&uW. 
It is further admitted, that the first inroad upon this narrow¬ 
ness was made by St. Paul, who insisted on the universality 
of Christ’s function, and the abrogation of the Mosaic Law in 
favor of inward faith, as the condition of union with God. 
Nor, again, is it denied that this freer view met with great 
resistance, and that its conflict with the other, apparent through¬ 
out the Pauline Epistles, formed the most animating feature 


248 


CREED AND HERESIES 


of the Apostolic age. During that period, two distinct parties, 
and two separate lines of development and growth, may be 
traced; one following out in morals the legal idea into ascet¬ 
icism, voluntary poverty, and physical purity, and in faith the 
monarchian idea into theocratic and millenarian expectations ; 
the other, proceeding from the notion of faith to substitute an 
ideal Christ for the historical, a new religion for an old law, 
the free embrace of divine reconciliation for the anxious strain 
of self-mortifying obedience. But how long did this struggle 
and separation continue ? According to the prevalent belief, 
it was all over in a few years; and, by the happy harmony 
and concurrence of the Apostles, was determined in favor of 
the generous Pauline doctrine; so that St. John lived to see 
the Hebrew Christians sink into a mere Ebionitish sect out¬ 
side the pale, and their stiff Unitarian theology disowned in 
favor of the higher teachings of his Gospel. Against this 
assumption of so easy a victory over the Jewish tendency, 
several striking testimonies have often been urged. Tertul- 
lian, in a well-known passage of his treatise against Praxeas, 
describes the dislike with which the unlearned majority of 
believers regard the Trinitarian distinctions in the Godhead, 
and the zeal with which they cry out for holding to “ the 
Monarchy.” * In the time of Pope Zephyrinus, as we learn 
from Eusebius, a body of Unitarians in Home, followers of 
Artemon, defended their doctrine by the conservative plea of 
antiquity and general consent; affirming that it was no other 
than the uninterrupted creed of the Homan Church down to 
the time of Victor, the preceding pope; and that the higher 
doctrine of the Person of Christ was quite a recent innova- 
tion.f Nor are we without ecclesiastical literature, of even a 
later date, that by its theological tone gives witness to the 
same effect. The “ Clementine Recognitions,” written somo- 
where between 212 and 230, occupy a dogmatic position, 
higher indeed than the disciples of Artemon, but only in the 
direction of Arius, and, to save the Unity of God, deny the 


* “ Tert. adv. Prax.,” c. 3. 


t Euseb. H. E., V. 28. 




OF EARLY CHRISTIANITY. 


249 


Deity of Christ.* Relying on such evidence as this, Priestley, 
in his “ History of Early Opinions,” and his controversy with 
Bishop Horsley, maintained that the creed of the Church for 
the first two centuries was Unitarian. But this position was 
attended with many difficulties, so long as the present canon¬ 
ical Scriptures were allowed to have been in the hands of the 
Christians of that period, and recognized as authorities; for 
the narratives of the miraculous conception, the writings of 
Paul, and the Gospel of John, are irreconcilable with the 
schemes of belief attributed to the early Unitarians. More¬ 
over, if for two centuries the Church had interpreted its 
authoritative documents in one way, and formed on this its 
services and expositions, it is not easy to conceive the rapid 
revolution into another. During a period of free and floating 
tradition, there is manifest room for the growth qf essentially 
different modes of faith; but after the reception of a definite 
set of sacred books, the scope for change is much contracted. 
To treat the doctrine of the Logos as an innovation, yet as¬ 
cribe the fourth Gospel to the beloved disciple; to suppose 
that justification by works was the generally received notion 
among people who guided themselves by the authority of Paul, 
—involves us in irremediable contradictions. Avoiding these 
at least, possibly not without the risk of others, the celebrated 
theologians of Tubingen have maintained a bolder thesis than 
that of Priestley, including it indeed, but with it also a vast 
deal more. Their theory runs as follows. The opposition 
which St. Paul’s teaching excited, and of which his letters 
preserve so many traces, was neither so insignificant nor so 
short-lived as is commonly supposed ; but was encouraged 
and led by the other Apostles, especially James and John and 
Peter, who never heartily recognized the volunteer Apostle; 
and was so completely successful, that he died without having 
made any considerable impression on the Judaic Christianity 
sanctioned from Jerusalem. Accordingly, the earliest Chris¬ 
tian literature was Ebionitish; and no production was in higher 

* See Adolph Schliemann’s “ Clementinen, nebst den verwandten Schriften 
und der Ebionitismus,” Cap. III. ii. §§ 8, 9. 



250 


CREED AND HERESIES 


esteem than the “ Gospel of the Hebrews,” which, after being 
long current, with several variations of form, at last settled 
down into our Gospel of Matthew. In almost all the writ¬ 
ings known to us, even in Roman circles of the second cen¬ 
tury, — the Shepherd of Hermas, the Memorials of Hege- 
sippus, the works of Justin, — some character or other of 
Ebionitism is present, — millenarian doctrine, admiration of 
celibacy and of abstinence from meat and wine, denunciation 
of riches, emphatic assertion of the Messialiship of Jesus, and 
treatment of the miraculous conception as at least an open 
question. The labors of Paul, however, had left a seed which 
had been buried, but not killed; and from the first, a small 
party had cherished his freer principles, and sought to win 
acceptance for them; and as the progress of time increased 
the proportion of provincial and Gentile converts, and the 
Jewish wars of Titus and Hadrian destroyed the possibility 
of Mosaic obedience and the reasonableness of Hebrew hopes, 
the Pauline element rose in magnitude and importance. 
Thus the two courses of opposite development ran parallel 
with each other, and gradually found their interest in mutual 
recognition and concession. Hence, a series of writings pro¬ 
ceeding from either side, first of conciliatory approximation 
only, next of complete neutrality and equipoise, in which 
sometimes the figures of Peter and Paul themselves are pre¬ 
sented with studiously balanced honor, at others their char¬ 
acteristic ideas are adjusted by compromise. The Clementine 
Homilies, the Apostolic Constitutions, the Epistle of James, 
the Second Epistle of Clement, the Gospel of Mark, the Rec¬ 
ognitions, the Second Epistle of Peter, constitute the series 
proceeding from the Ebionitish side; while from the Pauline 
came the First Epistle of Peter, the Preaching of Peter, the 
writings of Luke, the First Epistle of Clement, the Epistle 
to the Philippians, the Pastoral Epistles, Poly carp’s, and the 
Ignatians. These productions, however, springing from the 
practical instinct of the West, deal with the ecclesiastical more 
than with the doctrinal phase of antagonism between the two 
directions; and end with establishing in Rome a Catholic 


OF EARLY CHRISTIANITY. 


251 


Church, founded on the united sepulchres of Peter and Paul, 
and combining the sacerdotalism of the Old Testament with 
the universality of the New Gentile Gospel. * Meanwhile, a 
similar course, with local modifications, was run by the Church 
of Asia Minor. Rome, with its political aptitude, having 
taken in hand the questions of discipline and organization, the 
speculative genius of the Asiatic Greek addressed itself simul¬ 
taneously to the development and determination of doctrine. 
Here the Epistle to the Galatians marks, as a starting-point, 
the same original struggle between the contrasted elements 
which the Epistle to the Romans betrays in Italy; while the 
Gospel of John closes the dogmatic strife of development 
with an accepted Trinity for faith, just as the Ignatian Epistles 
wind up the contests of the West with a recognized hierarchy 
for government. And between these extremes the East pre¬ 
sents to us, first, the intensely Judaical Apocalypse; next, 
with increasing reaction in the Pauline direction, the rudi¬ 
ments of the Logos idea in the Epistles to the Hebrews, Co- 
lossians, and Ephesians; and as Montanism, in the midst of 
which these arose, had already made familiar the conception 
of the Paraclete, all the conditions were present for combina¬ 
tion into the Johannine doctrine of the Trinity; and then it 
was, in the second quarter of the second century, that the 
fourth Gospel appeared. The speculative theology thus 
native to Lesser Asia was adopted for shelter and growth by 
the kindred Hellenism of Egypt, and gave rise to the school 
of Alexandria. In the whole of this theory great use is made 
of Montanism: it spans, as it were, the interval between the 
parallel movements of Italy and Asia; and is the common 
medium of thought in which they both take place. Singu¬ 
larly uniting in itself the rigor, the narrowness, the ascetic su¬ 
perstitions of its Hebrew basis, with a Phrygian prophetic 
enthusiasm and an Hellenic theosophy, it imported the latter 
into the doctrine, the former into the discipline,* of the Church. 
The Roman Catholic system betrays its Jewish or Montanist 
origin in its legalism, its penances, its celibacy, its monachism, 
its ecstatic phenomena, its physical supernaturalism, its exag¬ 
gerated appreciation of martyrdom. 


252 


CREED AND HERESIES 


Such, in barest outline, is the theory which M. Bunsen 
characterizes as the “ Tubingen romance.” Its leading princi¬ 
ple is, that the antagonism between the Petrine and Pauline, 
the Hebrew and the Hellenic Gospel, which has its origin 
and authentic expression in the Epistles to the Galatians, Bo- 
mans, and Corinthians, continued into the second century; de¬ 
termined the evolution of doctrine and usage; stamped itself 
upon the ecclesiastical literature; and ended in the compro¬ 
mise and reconciliation of the Catholic Church. It is evident 
that, in the working out of this principle, the New Testament 
canon is made to give way. With the exception of the great¬ 
er Pauline Epistles and the Apocalypse, both of which are 
held fast as genuine productions of the Apostles whose names 
they bear, and the first Gospel, which is allowed to have at 
least the groundwork in the primitive tradition, the received 
books are all set loose from the dates and mimes usually as¬ 
signed to them, and arranged, in common with other products 
of the time, according to the relation they bear to the Ebionit- 
ish or to the Pauline school, and the particular stage they seem 
to mark in the history of either. This proceeding, however, 
is not an original violence resorted to for the exigencies of the 
theory; but, for the most part, a mere appropriation to its use 
of conclusions reached by antecedent theologians on indepen¬ 
dent grounds. The Epistle to the Philippians is the only 
work, if we mistake not, on the authenticity of which doubt 
has been thrown for the first time, — in our opinion, on very 
inadequate grounds. In this, as in many other details of the 
hypothetical history, there is not a little of that straining of 
real evidence and subtle fabrication of unreal, which German 
criticism seems unable to avoid. But the acerbity displayed 
by the North German theologians towards the Tubingen crit¬ 
ics appears to us unwarranted and humiliating; and we cer¬ 
tainly wish that M. Bunsen, whose prompt admiration of 
excellence so nobly distinguishes him from Ewald, could have 
expressed his dissent from Baur and Schwegler in a tone still 
further removed from the Gottingen pitch. At least, we do 
not find the positive assertion that the Tubingen theory is 


OF EARLY CHRISTIANITY. 


253 


finally demolished by the “ Philosopliumena ” at all borne out 
by the evidence; and are inclined to think that the case is 
very little altered by the new elements now contributed to its 
discussion. The critical offence which he thinks is now de¬ 
tected and exposed, is the ascription of a late origin to the 
fourth Gospel,* and the treatment of it as the perfected pro¬ 
duct, instead of the misused source, of the Montanist concep¬ 
tions of the Logos and the Paraclete. It cannot, however, be 
denied, that, in the previous absence of any external testimo¬ 
ny to the existence of this Gospel earlier than the year 170,f 
the internal difficulties are sufficiently serious to redeem the 
doubt of its authenticity from the character of rashness or 
perversity. The irreconcilable opposition between its whole 
mode of thought and that of the Apocalypse is confessed by 
M. Bunsen himself, when he suggests that the proem on the 
Logos was directed against Cerinthus, — the very person 
whose sentiments the Apocalypse was supposed to express, 
and to whom, accordingly, it was ascribed by those who reject¬ 
ed it. One of the two books must resign, then, the name of 
the beloved disciple; and, of the two, we need hardly say 
that the Apocalypse is incomparably the better authenticated. 
Moreover, the traditions which unite the names of James and 
John, as the authorities followed by the Church of Lesser 
Asia, render it hard to conceive that their doctrines can have 
taken precisely opposite directions; and that, while James 
represented the Judaic Christianity of the deepest dye, John 

* M. Bunsen must have some authority which has escaped our memory 
for attributing to “ the whole school of Tubingen ” the opiuion “ that the 
fourth Gospel was written about the year 165 or 170.” (I. v.) We cannot 
call to mind any criticism which assigns so late a date. Schwegler uses 
various expressions to mark the time to which he refers; e. g. “ about the 
middle of the second century” (Nachapost. Zeitalter, II. 354, and Monta- 
nismus, p. 214); “intermediate between the Apologists and Irenasus ” (II. 
369); “ previous to the last third of the second century” (II. 348); “ in the 
second quarter of the second century ” (II. 345). Zeller also fixes on the year 
150 as the time when the Gospel may probably have.first appeared. (Zeller’s 
Jahrb., 1845, p. 646.) 

t The earliest testimony is that of Apollinaris, of Hierapolis in Phrygia, 
preserved in the “ Paschal Chronicle,” probably about A. d. 170-175. 

22 



254 


CREED AND HERESIES 


can have produced the standard and conclusive work on the 
other side. In particular, the well-known fact, that the Asi¬ 
atic Christians justified their Jewish mode of keeping Easter 
by the double plea, (1.) that James and John always did so, 
(2.) that Christ himself had done so before he suffered, seems 
incompatible with any knowledge of the fourth Gospel, which 
denies that Jesus ate the passover before he suffered, and 
makes his own death to be the passover. How could this 
Quartodeciman controversy live a day among a people pos¬ 
sessing and acknowledging John’s Gospel, which so bears 
upon it as to give a distinct contradiction to the view of the 
other Gospels, and to pronounce in Asia Minor itself an unam¬ 
biguous verdict in favor of the West? These are grave diffi¬ 
culties, which, after all the ingenuity, even of Bleek, remain, 
we fear, unrelieved; and in their presence we cannot feel the 
justice of M. Bunsen’s sentence, that Baur’s opinion is “ the 
most unhappy of philological conjectures.” Everything con¬ 
jectural, however, must give way before real historical testi¬ 
mony ; and, if new evidence is actually contained in the “ Phi- 
losophumena,” every true critic, of Tubingen or elsewhere, 
will be thankful for light to dissipate the doubt. Now, it is 
said that our Roman bishop, in treating of the heresy of Ba- 
silides, supplies passages from the writings of this heresiarch 
which include quotations from the fourth Gospel; and thus 
prove its existence as early as the year 130. This argument, 
as stated by M. Bunsen, appeared to us quite conclusive, and 
we hoped that a decided step had been gained towards the set¬ 
tlement of the question. Great was our disappointment, on 
reading the account in the original, to find no evidence that 
any extract from Basilides was before us at all. A general 
description of the system bearing his name is given; but with 
no mention of any work of his, no profession that the words 
are his, and even so little individual reference to him, that 
the exposition is introduced as being a report of what “ Basili¬ 
des and Isidorus, and the whole troop of these people, falsely 
say” ( Karayf/evderai , sing.). Then follows the account of the 
dogmas of the sect, with the word faafo inserted from time to 


OF EARLY CHRISTIANITY. 


255 


time, to indicate Uiat the writer is still reporting the senti¬ 
ments of others. The singular form of this word implies 
nothing at all; it occurs immediately after the word koto^cv- 
drrai, and has the same avowedly plural subject. The state¬ 
ment, therefore, within which are contained the Scripture cita¬ 
tions, is a merely general one of the opinions of a sect which 
continued to subsist till a much later time than the lowest date 
ever assigned for the composition of the fourth Gospel. If the 
actual words of any writings current among these heretics are 
given, they are the words of an author or authors wholly un¬ 
known, and to refer them to Basilides in particular is a mere 
arbitrary act of will. The change from the singular to the 
plural forms of citation in the midst of one and the same sen¬ 
tence, and the disregard of concord between verb and subject, 
show that no inference can be drawn from so loose a system of 
grammatical usage. All that can be affirmed is, that our au¬ 
thor had in his hand some production of the Basilidian yopo'?, 
in which the fourth Gospel was quoted; but this affords no 
chronological datum that can be of the smallest use.* The 

* We will give, from this very section on Basilides, and its-subsequent 
recapitulation, three examples of the irregular mode of citation to which we 
refer: (a) of the singular verb with plural subject expressed; ( b) of plural 
verb with singular subject expressed; (c) of the mixture of singular and 
plural subjects in the same sentence, so that the affirmation belongs indeter¬ 
minately to either. 

(«)*I Bcogev ovv tvcos KciTa(f)avec>s BatriXeiSq? ogov Kal ’icriScopos Kal 
7 ray 6 tovtcov yopo?, oi>x bnXcbs Karax// evderai govov MarOaiov, 
dXXa yap Kal tov 2<oTrjpos avrov. ’Hi/, (prjcrlv , ore rjv ovbev, K. T. X. 
— p. 230. 

(b) B aaiXelbrjs Se kcu ovtos Xe'yet eivai 6cbv ovk ovra, 7T€7roir]gevov 
Kocrgov e’£ oiiK ovtcov, . ... 77 cos <oov raou e^ov ev eavrco rrju tcov 
X pcogarcov 7 joikI\i]v nXrjdvv , /cat tovto eivac (f)acrl to tov Kocrgov cmep- 
ga, k. t. X. —P* 320. 

(c) Kai SeSoi/ce tos koto. npofioXrjv tcov yeyovorcov ovalas 6 Bacrt- 
Xdbrjs .... aXXa ei 7 re, <f)r]orl , Kal eyeWro, Kai tovto eariv 6 Xeyovcnv 
oi avdpes ovtoi, to Xey&'i/ vno Mcoaecos, “ Vevr]6i]Tco (f)c os, Kal eyevero 

(pus” Ilodev , < prjal , yeyove to (pcbs; . Yeyove, (prjalv , e£ ovk 

ovtcov to anepga tov Kocrgov, 6 Xoyos 6 Xe^ei? yevr)6i)rco cpcbs, kcu 
tovto, (prjalv, e<m to Xeyogevov ev toIs EvayyeXtois • “*Hi/ to (pcbs 




256 


CREED AND HERESIES 


same remark applies to the use of John’s Gospel by the 
Ophites. That they did use it is evident; that they existed as 
far back as the time of Peter and Paul is certainly probable ; 
yet it does not follow that the fourth Gospel was then extant. 
For they continued in existence through two or three centuries, 
dating, as Baur has shown, from a time anterior not only to 
the Christian heresies, but to Christianity itself, and extending 
down to Origen’s time; and to what part of this long period 
the writings belonged which the author of the “ Philosophu- 
mena” employed, we are absolutely unable to determine. We 
do not know why M. Bunsen has not appealed also to a quo¬ 
tation from the Gospel which occurs (p. 194) in an account of 
the Valentinian system. If, as he affirms (I. 63), this account 
were really in “ Valentinus’s own words ,” the citation would 
be of particular value in the controversy. For it has always 
been urged by the Tubingen critics as a highly significant fact, 
that while the followers of Valentinus showed an especial 
eagerness to appeal to the Gospel of John, and one of the ear¬ 
liest, Heracleon, wrote a commentary upon it, no trace could be 
found of its use by the lieresiarch himself. From this cir¬ 
cumstance, they have inferred that the Gospel was not avail¬ 
able for him, and first appeared after his time. A single 
clause cited by him from the Gospel would demolish this argu¬ 
ment at once. But the assertion that we have here “full 
eight pages of Valentinus’s own words” appears to us quite 
groundless. No such thing is affirmed by the writer of the 
eight pages. He promises to tell us how the strict adhe¬ 
rents to the original principle of the sect expounded their doc¬ 
trine (o>y eiceluoi dibdo-icovo-i) ; and then passes over, as usual, to 
the singular returning, however, from time to time, to 

the plural forms, — QeXovo-i, \eyovo-i, &c., — and thus leaving 
no pretext for the assumption that Valentinus is before us in 
person. The later Gnostics indisputably resorted to the Gos- 

ru akrjOivbv , 6 (pcori^ei ndvra avdpcoTrov ep^dpeuou els r ov Kocrpov.” — 
p. 232. • Now can any one decide whether this comment on the Let there 
he light, and there was light,” with its applications to John i. 9, proceeds 
from “ Basilides ” or from “ these men ” ? 



OP EARLY CHRISTIANITY. 


257 


pel of John with especial zeal and preference; and if their 
predecessors, Basilides and Valentinus, were acquainted with 
the book, it is surprising that no trace of their familiarity with 
it has been found; and that the former should have sought to 
authenticate the secret doctrine he professed to have received 
by the name of Matthew or Matthias instead of John. It de¬ 
serves remark, that the citations preserved by our author are 
made, like those of Justin Martyr, as from an anonymous writ¬ 
ing, without mentioning the name of the Evangelist; a cir¬ 
cumstance less surprising in reference to the Synoptics alone, 
which present only varieties of the same fundamental tradi¬ 
tion, than when the fourth Gospel, so evidently the independent 
production of a single mind, is thrown into the group. The 
Epistles of Paul and the books of the Old Testament are fre¬ 
quently quoted by name ; and why this practice should inva¬ 
riably cease whenever the historical work of an Apostle was 
in the hand, it is not easy to explain. The Apocalypse is men¬ 
tioned not without his name.* 

For these reasons we are of opinion that the question about 
the date and authenticity of the fourth Gospel is wholly unaf¬ 
fected by the newly-discovered work. On this side, no new 
facilities are gained for confuting the Tubingen theory. The 
most positive and startling fact against it is presented from 
another direction. We know that the system of Theodotus, 
which was Unitarian, was condemned by Victor in the last 
decade of the second century.f Now Victor was the very 
pope to the end of whose period, according to the followers of 
Artemon, their monarchian faith was upheld in the Roman 
Church, and in the time of whose successor was the first im¬ 
portation of the higher doctrine of the Logos. On this com¬ 
plaint of the Artemonites, Baur and Schwegler lay great stress; 
but is it not refuted by Victor’s orthodox act of expelling a 
Unitarian ? Undoubtedly it would be so, if Theodotus were 
excommunicated precisely for his belief in the uni-personality 
of God. But his scheme included many articles; and we 


* Page 528. 


22* 


f Euseb. II. E., V. 28. 



258 


CREED AND HERESIES 


know nothing of the ground taken in the proceedings against 
him. There was one question, however, which, however in¬ 
different to us, was evidently very near to the feelings of the 
early Church, and on which Theodotus separated himself from 
the prevailing conceptions of his time, — viz. At what date 
did the Christ, the Divine principle, become united with Je¬ 
sus, the human being? “At his baptism,” replied Theodo¬ 
tus.* “ Before his birth,” said the general voice of the Chris¬ 
tians. We are disposed to think this was the obnoxious tenet 
which Victor construed into heresy; and if so, the strife had 
no bearing upon the doctrine of the personality of the Logos, 
which the pope and the heretic might both have rejected. Of 
the Unitarianism of that time, it was no essential feature to 
postpone till the baptism the heavenly element in Christ. 
We remember no reason for supposing that the Artemonites 
did so, though Theodotus did; and if they knew that the ob¬ 
jection which had been fatal to him did not apply to them, 
their claim of ancient and orthodox sanction for what they 
held in common with him was not answered by pointing to 
his condemnation for what was special to himself. But is 
there, it will be asked, any evidence that the Roman Church 
attached importance to this particular ingredient of the The- 
odotian scheme, so that their bishop might feel impelled to 
visit it with ecclesiastical censure? We believe there is, and 
that too in the “ Philosopliumena.” In the author’s confession 
of faith occurs a passage which produces at first a strange 
impression upon a modern reader, and appears like a violence 
done to the Gospel history. It affirms that Christ passed 
through every stage of human life , that he might serve as the 
model to all. Nor is this idea a personal whim of the writer; 
but is borrowed from his master, Irenceus, who gives it in 
more detail, and winds it up with the assertion, that Christ 
lived to he fifty years old .f Irenceus thus falsifies the history 
to make good the moral; our presbyter, by respecting the 
history, apparently invalidates the moral: for it can scarcely 


* “ Pliilosophumena,” p. 258. 


t Iren. Lib. II. c. 39. 



OF EARLY CHRISTIANITY. 


259 


be said of a life closed after thirty-one or thirty-two years, 
that it supplies a rule ndo-a ijXikltj ; at least it would seem more 
natural to apologize for its premature termination, than to lay 
stress on its absolute completeness The truth is, there was 
a certain obnoxious tenet behind, which these writers were 
anxious to contradict, and which their assertion exactly meets, 
— viz. the very tenet of Theodotus, that the Divine nature 
did not unite itself with the Saviour till his baptism. Ire- 
naeus and his pupil could not endure this limitation of what 
was highest in Christ to the interval between his first public 
preaching and his crucifixion. They thought that in this way 
it was reduced to a mere official investiture, not integral to his 
being, but externally superinduced; and that such a conception 
deprived it of all its moral significance. The union of the 
Logos with our nature was not a provision for temporary in¬ 
spiration or a forensic redemption; but was intended to mould 
a life and shape a personal existence, according to the im¬ 
maculate ideal of humanity. To accomplish this intention it 
was necessary that the Logos should never be absent from 
any part of his earthly being; but should have claimed his 
person from the first, and by preoccupation have neutralized 
the action of the natural (or psychic) element, throughout all 
the years of his continuance among men. The anxiety of 
Irenams’s school to put this interpretation on the manifestation 
of the Logos, their determination to distinguish it, on the one 
hand, from the mediate communication of prophets as an im¬ 
mediate presentation (avTo\{/el (parepco0rjvai), and, on the other, 
from the transient occupancy of a ready-made man, as a per¬ 
manent and thorough-going incarnation (o-apKoodtjvcu in oppo¬ 
sition to (parraa-la or Tponrj), is apparent in their whole lan¬ 
guage on this subject. In the Son, we are carried to the 
fresh fountain-head of every kind of perfection, and find the 
unspoiled ideal of heavenly and terrestrial natures. In one 
of the fragments of Ilippolytus, published by Mai, and noticed 
in M. Kunsen’s Appendix, this notion is conveyed by the re¬ 
mark, that He is first-born of God’s own essence, that he may 
have precedence of angels ; first-born of a virgin, that he may 


260 


CREED AND HERESIES 


be a fresh-created Adam; first-born of death, that he might 
become the first fruits of our resurrection.* This doctrine it 
is, we apprehend, which amplifies itself into the Irenaean state¬ 
ment, that the divine and ideal function of Christ coalesced 
with the historical throughout, so that to infants he was a con¬ 
secrating infant; to little children, a consecrating child; to 
youth, a consecrating model of youth; and to elders, a still 
consecrating rule, not only by disclosure of truth, but by ex¬ 
hibiting the true type of their perfection.f The teaching of 
Theodotus, that the heavenly fUdov remained at a distance till 
the baptism, was directly contradictory of this favorite notion; 
and might well produce hostile excitement, and provoke con¬ 
demnation, in a church where the Irenaean influence is known 
to have been powerful. The attitude that Victor assumed 
towards the Theodotians is thus perfectly compatible with 
Monarchian opinions, and with an attitude equally hostile, 
in the opposite direction, towards the advancing Trinitarian 
claims of a distinct personality for the Logos. Though only 
the one hostility is recorded of Victor, the other is ascribed, 
as we have seen, to his immediate successors, Zephyrinus and 
Callistus, who maintained that it was no other person than 
the Father that dwelt as the Logos in the Son. The facts 
taken together, and spreading as they do over the periods of 
three popes, afford undeniable traces of a struggle at the turn 
of the second century, between a prevalent but threatened 
Monarchianism, and a new doctrine of the Divine Personal¬ 
ity of the Son. 

After all, why is INI. Bunsen so anxious to disprove the 
late appearance of the fourth Gospel ? Did he value it chief¬ 
ly as a biographical sketch, and depend upon it for concrete 

* I. p. 341. 

t "Ihe words of the author of the “ Philosophumena” are these: Tovrov 
cyvwpev €K napSevov acdpa dveiXtjcfroTa kiu tov naXaiov dvdpoonov did 
Kaivtjs ir\dcrea)s ne^oprjKOTa^ iv filip bid ndarjg rjXiKias iXT]XvdoTa , iva 
Trao-T] rjXiKia cnurbs vopos yevr]6rj Kai (tkottov tov "tbiov dvdpconov ndaiv 
dvdpaiTToig embeigri 7rapcbv, Kai bi avrov eXey £77 on prjbev inolrjaev 6 
6ebs 7rovr)pov. —p* 337. 



OF EARLY CHRISTIANITY. 


261 


facts, a first-hand authentication of its contents would be of 
primary moment. But his interest in it is evidently specula¬ 
tive rather than historical, and centres upon its doctrinal 
thought, not on its narrative attestation ; and especially singles 
out the proem as a condensed and perfect expression of Chris¬ 
tian ontology. The book speaks to him, and finds him, out 
of its mystic spiritual depths; sanctifies his own philosophy; 
glorifies with an ideal haze the greatest reality of history; 
blends with melting tints the tenderness of the human, and 
the sublimity of the divine life; and presents the Holy Spirit 
as immanent in the souls of the faithful and the destinies of 
humanity. But its enunciation of great truths, its penetration 
to the still sanctuary of devout consciousness, will not cease 
to be facts, or become doubtful as merits, or be changed in 
their endearing power, by an alteration in the superscription 
or the date. These religious and philosophical features con¬ 
verse directly with Reason and Conscience, and have the same 
significance, whatever their critical history may be; and are 
not the less rich as inspirations from having passed for inter¬ 
pretation through more minds than one. There is neither 
common sense nor piety, as M. Bunsen himself, we feel cer¬ 
tain, will allow, in the assumption that Revelation is neces¬ 
sarily most perfect at its source, and can only grow earthy and 
turbid as it flows. Were it something entirely foreign to the 
mind, capable of holding no thought in solution, but inevita¬ 
bly spoiled by every abrasion it effects of philosophy and 
feeling, this mechanical view would be correct. But if it be 
the intenser presence, the quickened perception of a Being 
absent from none; if it be the infinite original of which phi¬ 
losophy is the finite reflection; if thus it speaks, not in the 
unknown tongue of isolated ecstasy, but in the expressive 
music of our common consciousness and secret prayer; — then 
is it so little unnatural, so related to the constitution of our 
faculties, that the mind’s continuous reaction on it may bring 
it more clearly out; and, after being detained at first amid 
sluggish levels and unwholesome growths which mar its di¬ 
vine transparency, it may percolate through finer media, drop 


262 


CREED AND HERESIES 


its accidental admixtures, and take up in each stratum of 
thought some elements given it by native affinity, and become 
more purely the spring of life in its descent than in its source. 
If, before the fourth Gospel was written, the figure of Christ, 
less close to the eye, was seen more in its relations to human¬ 
ity and to God; if his deep hints, working in the experience 
of more than one generation, had expanded their marvellous 
contents; if, in a prolonged contact of his religion with Hel¬ 
lenism, elements had disclosed themselves of irresistible sym¬ 
pathy, and the first sharp boundary drawn by Jewish hands 
had melted away; if his concrete history itself was now sub¬ 
ordinate to its ideal interpretation; — the book will present us 
still with a Christianity, not impoverished, but enriched. In 
proportion as its thoughts speak for themselves by their depth 
and beauty, may all anxiety cease about their external legiti¬ 
mation ; their credentials become eternal instead of individ¬ 
ual; and where the Father himself thus beareth witness, 
Christ needeth not the testimony of man. It cannot be, there¬ 
fore, any religious issue that depends on the date of this 
Christian record; it cannot make truth, it can only awaken 
the mind to discern it; and whether it has this power or not, 
the mind can only report according to its consciousness of 
quickening light or stagnant darkness. The interest of this 
question cannot surely be more than a critical interest, to one 
who can feel and speak in this noble strain: — 

“ No divine authority is given to any set of men to make 
truth for mankind. The supreme judge is the Spirit in the 
Church, that is to say, in the universal body of men profess¬ 
ing Christ. The universal conscience is God’s highest inter¬ 
preter. If Christ speaks truth, his words must speak to the 
human reason and conscience, whenever and wherever they 
are preached: let them, therefore, be preached. If the Gos¬ 
pels contained inspired wisdom, they must themselves inspire 
with heavenly thoughts the conscientious inquirer and the 
serious thinker : let them, therefore, freely be made the object 
of inquiry and of thought. Scripture, to be believed true 
with full conviction, must be at one with reason : let it, there- 


OF EARLY CHRISTIANITY. 


263 


fore, be treated rationally. By taking this course, we shall 
not lose strength; but we shall gain a strength which no 
church ever had. There is strength in Christian discipline, if 
freely accepted by those who are to submit to it; there is 
strength in spiritual authority, if freely acknowledged by those 
who care for Christ; there is strength unto death in the en¬ 
thusiasm of an unenlightened people, if sincere, and connected 
with lofty moral ideas. But there is no strength to be com¬ 
pared with that of a faith which identifies moral and intel¬ 
lectual conviction with religious belief, with that of an au¬ 
thority instituted by such a faith, and of a Christian life based 
upon it, and striving to Christianize this world of ours, for 
which Christianity was proclaimed. Let those who are sin¬ 
cere, but timid, look into their conscience, and ask themselves 
whether their timidity proceeds from faith, or whether it does 
not rather betray a want of faith. Europe is in a critical 
state, politically, ecclesiastically, socially. Where is the power 
able to reclaim a world, which, if it be faithless, is become so 
under untenable and ineffective ordinances, — which, if it is in 
a state of confusion, has become confused by those who have 
spiritually guided it ? Armies may subdue liberty; but ar¬ 
mies cannot conquer ideas : much less can Jesuits and Jesuiti¬ 
cal principles restore religion, or superstition revive faith. I 
deny the prevalence of a destructive and irreligious spirit in 
the hearts of the immense majority of the people. I believe 
that the world wants, not less, but more religion. But how¬ 
ever this be, I am firmly convinced that God governs the 
world, and that he governs it by the eternal ideas of truth 
and justice engraved on our conscience and reason ; and I 
am sure that nations, who have conquered, or are conquering, 
civil liberty for themselves, will sooner or later as certainly 
demand liberty of religious thought, and that those whose 
fathers have victoriously acquired religious liberty will not 
fail to demand civil and political liberty also. With these 
ideas, and with the present irresistible power of communicat¬ 
ing ideas, what can save us except religion, and therefore 
Christianity ? But then it must be a Christianity based upon 


2G4 


CREED AND HERESIES 


that which is eternally God’s own, and is as indestructible 
and as invincible as he is himself: it must be based upon 
Reason and Conscience, I mean reason spontaneously em¬ 
bracing the faith in Christ, and Christian faith feeling itself at 
one with reason and with the history of the world. Civilized 
Europe, as it is at present, will fall; or it will be pacified by 
this liberty, this reason, this faith. To prove that the cause 
of Protestantism in the nineteenth century is identical with 
the cause of Christianity, it is only necessary to attend to this 
fact; that they both must sink and fall, until they stand upon 
their indestructible ground, which, in my inmost conviction, is 
the real, genuine, original ground upon which Christ placed it. 
Let us, then, give up all notions of finding any other basis, all 
attempts to prop up faith by effete forms and outward things: 
let us cease to combat reason, whenever it contradicts conven¬ 
tional forms and formularies. We must take the ground 
pointed out by the Gospel, as well as by the history of Chris¬ 
tianity. We may then hope to realize what Christ died for, 
to see the Church fulfil the high destinies of Christianity, and 
God’s will manifested by Christ to mankind, so as to make 
the kingdoms of this earth the kingdoms of the Most High.” 
— p. 172. 

We have given our readers no conception of the variety 
and richness of M. Bunsen’s work; having scarcely passed 
beyond the limits of the first volume. It was impossible to 
pass by, without examination, the recovered monument of 
early Christianity, whence his materials and suggestions are 
primarily drawn ; and it is equally impossible to pass beyond 
it, without entering on a field too wide to be surveyed. We 
can only record that, in the remaining volumes, which are, in 
fact, a series of separate productions, the early doctrine of the 
Eucharist is investigated, and the progress of its corruptions 
strikingly traced; the primitive system of ecclesiastical rules 
or canons, and the “ Church-and-House Book,” or manual of 
instruction and piety in use among the ante-Nicene Chris¬ 
tians, are carefully and laboriously restored; and genuine 
Liturgies of the first centuries are reproduced. In this ar- 


OF EARLY CHRISTIANITY. 


265 


duous work of recovery, there is necessarily much need of 
critical tact, not to say much room for critical conjecture. 
But the one our author exercises with great felicity ; and the 
other he takes all possible pains to reduce to its lowest amount 
by careful comparison of Syrian, Coptic, and Abyssinian texts. 
The general result is a truly interesting set of sketches for a 
picture of the early Church; which rises before us with no 
priestly pretensions, no scholastic creeds, no bibliolatry, dry 
and dead; but certainly with an aspect of genuine piety and 
affection, and with an air of mild authority over the whole of 
life, which are the more winning from the frightful corruption 
and dissolving civilization of the Old World around. That 
our author should be fascinated with the image he has re¬ 
created, and long to see it brought to life, in place of that 
body of death on which we hang the pomps and titles of our 
nominal Christianity, is not astonishing. But a greater change 
is needed — though a far less will be denied — than a return 
to the type of faith and worship in the second century. To 
destroy the fatal chasm between profession and conviction, 
and bring men to live fresh out of a real reverence instead 
of against a pretended or a fancied one, a greater latitude and 
flexibility must be given to the forms of spiritual culture than 
was needed in the ancient world. The unity of system which 
was once possible is unseasonable amid our growing varieties 
of condition and culture ; and the methods which were natural 
among a people closely thrown together and constructing their 
life around the Church as a centre, would be highly artificial 
in a state of society in which the family is the real unit, and 
the congregation a precarious aggregate, of existence. Noth¬ 
ing, however, can be finer or more generous than the spirit of 
our author’s suggestions of reform; and we earnestly thank 
him for a profusion of pregnant thoughts and faithful warn¬ 
ings, the application of one half of which would change the 
fate of our churches, — the destiny of our nation, — the 
courses of the world. 


23 


THE CREED OE CHRISTENDOM. 


1. The Creed of Christendom ; its Foundations and Super¬ 
structure. By William Rathbone Greg. London: 
Chapman. 1851. 

2. St. Paid's Epistles to the Corinthians; an Attempt to 
convey their Spirit and Significance. By John Hamil¬ 
ton Thom. London: Chapman. 1851. 

These two books are placed together without the least in¬ 
tention to intimate a resemblance between them, or to repre¬ 
sent either author as sharing in the conclusions of the other. 
They are, indeed, concerned with opposite sides of the same 
subject; viewed, moreover, from the separate stations of the 
layman and the divine; and are the expression of strongly 
contrasted modes of thought. Mr. Greg deals principally 
with the external vehicle of the primitive Christianity; Mr. 
Thom with its internal essence. The one seeks in vain for 
any outward title in the records to suppress the operations of 
natural reason; the other clears away from the interior every 
interference with the free action of conscience and affection. 
The one, in the name of science,' demolishes the outworks of 
ecclesiastical logic with which the shrine of faith has been 
dangerously guarded: the other, in the name of Christ, ex¬ 
pels both priest and dogma from the sanctuary itself. The 
one, selecting deep truths from the words of Jesus, would 
construct religion into a philosophy; the other, with eye upon 




THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM. 


267 


His person as an image of perfect goodness, would develop it 
from a sentiment. As all opposites, however, are embraced 
in the circumference of the same circle, so are these works 
complements of each other Mr. Greg, in common with the 
Catholics and the Unitarians, evidently looks for the strength 
of Christianity in the Gospels ; Mr. Thom, with the majority 
of Protestants, in the Epistles. For want of some mediating 
harmony between the two, each perhaps requires some cor¬ 
rection : the historical picture of Christ saved by the former 
is but a pale and meagre outline; while the Pauline ideal 
presented by the latter is a glow of rich but undefined color¬ 
ing. Mr. Greg, who, in spite of particular errors, manifests 
a large knowledge and a masterly judgment in his criticism of 
the Evangelists, appears to have, in his own sympathies, no 
way of access to a mind like that of Paul, and to be much at 
fault in estimating the place of the Apostle both as a witness 
and a power in the organization of Christian tradition and 
doctrine. Had the acuteness and severity of his understand¬ 
ing been a little more qualified by such reflective depth and 
moral tenderness as Mr. Thom brings to the work of interpre¬ 
tation, his religion, we fancy, would have retained a less 
slender remnant of the primitive Christianity. 

Measured by the standard of common Protestantism, there 
can be no doubt that the second of these books would be 
condemned for heresy, and the first for unbelief. These ugly 
words, however, have been too often applied to what is fullest 
of truth and faith, to express more than a departure, which 
weak men feel to be irritating, from a favorite type of thought. 
They have lost their effect on all who are competent to medi¬ 
tate on the great problems of religion, and are fast taking 
their place in the scandalous vocabulary of professional po¬ 
lemics. It is a thing offensive to just men when divines, who 
have succeeded in smothering, or been too dull to entertain, 
doubts which rend the soul of genius and faithfulness, and 
insist on a veracious answer, meet them, not with sympathy, 
still less with mastery, but with the commonplaces of incom¬ 
petent pity and holy malediction. And the offence is doubled 


268 


THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM. 


in the eyes of instructed men, who know the state to which 
Biblical criticism has brought the theology of the Reformation. 
It is notorious that, in the revolt from Rome, the Scriptures 
— like a dictator suddenly created for the perils of a crisis — 
were forced into a position where it was impossible for them 
permanently to repose ; that they cannot be treated as infalli¬ 
ble oracles of either fact or doctrine, and were never meant to 
bear the weight of such unnatural claims ; that the authority 
once concentrated in them, and held even against the reason 
and conscience, must now be distributed, and ask their con¬ 
currence. These are not questionable positions, but so irre¬ 
sistibly established, that learning of the highest order would 
no more listen to an argument against them, than Herschel or 
Airy to a disquisition against the rotation of the earth. When 
a clergyman, therefore, treats them with horror, and de¬ 
nounces them as infidelity, he produces no conviction, except 
that he himself is either ill-informed or insincere. Profes¬ 
sional reproaches against a book so manly and modest, so 
evidently truth-loving, so high-minded and devout, as this of 
Mr. Greg’s, are but a melancholy imbecility. We may hold to 
many things which he resigns; we may think him wrong in 
the date of a Gospel or the construction of a miracle; we 
may even dissent from his estimate of the grounds of immor¬ 
tal hope and the ways of eternal Providence: but we do not 
envy, and cannot understand, the religion which can feel no 
thankful communion with thought so elevated, and trust so 
sound and real. No candid reader of the “ Creed of Chris¬ 
tendom ” can close the book without the secret acknowledg¬ 
ment that it is a model of honest investigation and clear 
exposition; that it is conceived in the true spirit of serious 
and faithful research ; and that whatever the author wants of 
being an ecclesiastical Christian is plainly not essential to the 
noble guidance of life, and the devout earnestness of the 
affections. 

It is highly honorable to an English layman, amid the 
pressure of affairs, to take up a class of critical inquiries, 
which the clergy seem to have abandoned for a narrower and 


THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM. 


269 


more passionate polemic. It is a remarkable characteristic of 
the present age, that, when the most startling attacks are made 
upon the very foundations of existing churches, nobody repels 
them. Nothing is offered to break their effect, except the 
inertia of the mass that rests upon the base assailed. For 
every great sceptical work of the last century there was some 
score of reputable answers ; but half a dozen books of the 
same tendency have appeared within a few years, all of which 
have been copiously reviewed, have spread excitement over a 
wide surface, and set an immense amount of theological hair 
on end, but not one of which has received any adequate reply. 
Yet the slightest of these productions would favorably com¬ 
pare, in all the requisites for successful persuasion, — in learn¬ 
ing, in temper, in acuteness, — with the best of the last age, 
excepting only the philosophical disquisitions of Hume and 
the ecclesiastical chapters of Gibbon. The first in time,— 
Ilennell’s “ Inquiry into the Origin of Christianity,” — though 
the most open to refutation, was permitted to pass through an 
unmolested existence ; and its influence, considerable in itself, 
and increased by the sweet and truthful character of the 
author, is still traceable in the pages of Mr. Greg. To the 
effect of Strauss’s extraordinary work, the good Neander’s 
Leben Jesu offers but a mild resistance, and is itself, through 
the extent of its concessions, an open proclamation that the 
problems of theology can never be restored to the state in 
which all churches assume them to be. Parker was excom¬ 
municated by his sect; but his “ Discourse of Matters per¬ 
taining to Religion ” has walked the course unchallenged, and 
displayed the splendor of its gifts, within the entire lines of 
the English language. Newman, Foxton, and Greg have 
since entered their names on the index expurgatorius of 
Orthodoxy ; but they also will be simply excluded from the 
sacred circle of readers bound over not to think ; and, beyond 
this, will make their converts undisturbed, and accumulate 
fresh charges of threatening power in the intellectual atmo¬ 
sphere which surrounds the Church. Whence this pusillani¬ 
mous apathy ? Is it forgotten that creeds always assailed and 
23 * 


270 


THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM. 


never defended are sure to perish ? Or is it felt that the 
defence, to be sound and strong, must be so partial — so lim¬ 
ited to points of detail — as to promise a mere diversion, 
instead of a repulse, 'and be more dangerous than the attitude 
of passiveness? Or does the Church resignedly give up her 
hold on the class of earnest, intellectual men who cannot 
degrade religion into a second-hand tradition, but must “ know 
what they worship ” ? Certain it is that her whole activity 
has long abandoned this class, and addressed itself exclusively 
to the narrower and lower order of mind, whose vision is 
bounded by the periphery of a given creed, and whose life is 
satisfied with the squabbles and the gossip of articles forced 
into neighborhood, but no longer on speaking terms. If the 
efficacy of “holy orders” is called in question, streams of 
sacerdotal refutation flow from the press; but if the inspira¬ 
tion of the twelve Apostles is denied, it is a thing that neither 
bishop nor priest will care to vindicate. If a word of mis¬ 
take is uttered about the drops of water on the face of a 
baptized baby, it conjures up a storm that rolls from diocese 
to diocese; but if you say that pure religion has no rite or 
sacrament at all, the ecclesiastic atmosphere remains still as a 
Quaker’s silent meeting. The deepest interest is felt about the 
origin of liturgies, and the history of articles, but nobody heeds 
the most staggering evidence that three of the Gospels are 
second-hand aggregations of hearsay reports, and the fourth 
of questionable authenticity. You deny the self-consistency 
of the Church of England and call it a compromise; and the 
sudden rustle of gowns and sleeves proclaims a great sensa¬ 
tion. You analyze the accounts of Christ’s resurrection; you 
ask whether they are not discrepant; you point out that, 
apparently, the oldest record (Mark’s) contained, in its origi¬ 
nal form, no account of the event at all, and that the others 
bear seeming traces of distinct and incompatible traditions. 
You cry aloud for help in this perplexity, and hold yourselves 
ready to follow any vestiges of truth; and, except that the 
creeds are still muttered every Sunday, all the oracles are 
dumb. If you want to find the true magic pass into heaven, 


THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM. 


2 71 


scores of rival professors press round you with obtrusive 
supply: if you ask in your sorrow, Who can tell me whether 
there be a heaven at all ? every soul will keep aloof and leave 
you alone. All men that bring from God a fresh, deep na¬ 
ture, all in whom religious wants live with eager power, and 
who yet are too clear of soul to unthink a thought and falsify, 
a truth, receive in these days no help and no response. The 
Church feels its interest, as an educated corporation, to con¬ 
sist in overlaying and covering up the foundations of faith with 
huge piles of curious learning, history, and art, which, by 
affording endless occupation, may detain men from search 
after the living rock, or notice of the undermining flood. 
And, as an established corporation, she relies on the lazy con¬ 
servatism of mental possession; on the dislike felt by the 
comfortable classes towards the trouble of thought and the 
disturbance of feeling, and their usual willingness to hand 
over these operations to the prayer-book and tl\e priest We 
are grateful to Mr. Greg for shaking this ignoble and preca¬ 
rious reliance, which he notices in these admirable sen¬ 
tences. 

“ A more genuine and important objection to the conse¬ 
quences of our views is felt by indolent minds on their own 
account. They shrink from the toil of working out truth for 
themselves out of the materials which Providence has placed 
before them. They long for the precious metal, but loathe 
the rude ore out of which it has to be extricated by the 
laborious alchemy of thought. A ready-made creed is the 
paradise of their lazy dreams. A string of authoritative, 
dogmatic propositions comprises the whole mental wealth 
which they desire. The volume of nature — the volume of 
history — the volume of life — appall and terrify them. Such 
men are the materials out of whom good catholics of all sects 
are made. They form the uninquiring and submissive flocks 
which rejoice the hearts of all priesthoods. Let such cling to 
the faith of their forefathers, if they can. But men whose 
minds are cast in a nobler mould, and are instinct with a 
diviner life, — who love truth more than rest, and the peace of 


272 


THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM. 


Heaven rather than the peace of Eden, — to whom 4 a loftier 
being brings severer cares/ — 

‘ Who know man does not live b) r joy alone, 

But by the presence of the power of God/— 

such must cast behind them the hope of any repose or tran¬ 
quillity, save that which is the last reward of long agonies of 
thought; they must relinquish all prospect of any heaven, 
save that of which tribulation is the avenue and portal; they 
must gird up their loins and trim their lamp for a work which 
cannot be put by, and which must not be negligently done. 
4 He/ says Zschokke, 4 who does not like living in the fur¬ 
nished lodgings of tradition , must build his own house, his 
own system of thought and faith for himself.’ ” — p. 242. 

The work of Mr. Greg derives its interest, not from any¬ 
thing in it that will be new to the studious theologian, but 
from the freshness and force with which it presents the results 
of the author’s reading and reflection on both the claims and 
the contents of Scripture. Adopting the ordinary notion of 
44 inspiration,” as equivalent to a supernaturally provided 
44 infallibility,” he reviews and condemns the reasonings by 
which this attribute has been associated with the Bible ; and 
decides that the mere discovery of a statement in the Scrip¬ 
tures is no sufficient reason for our implicit reception of it. 
Having cleared away this obstacle to all intelligent criticism, 
he pursues his way, chiefly under the guidance of De Wette, 
through the earlier literature of the Hebrews; and adds 
another to the many exposures of the humiliating attempts, 
on the part of English divines, to reconcile the cosmogony of 
Genesis with modern science; attempts which we should call 
obsolete, did we not remember that Buckland and Whewell 
are both living, and have not yet attained the episcopal bench. 
Mr. Greg adopts the views of which Baur is the best known 
recent expositor, but which Lessing long ago traced out, as to 
the gradual formation of the Hebrew monotheism; and shows 
the-striking contrast between the family Jehovah of the Pa¬ 
triarchs and the universal God of the later Prophets. What¬ 
ever be the origin of the doctrine of a Messiah, and under 


THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM. 


273 


whatever varieties it appeared, it never pointed, the author 
conceives, to such a person as Jesus of Nazareth, or such a 
product as the Christian Church; and it is only by perverse 
interpretations, unendurable out of the field of theology, that 
any passages in the Old Testament can be made out to pre¬ 
figure the events in the New. In the argument, therefore, 
between the early missionaries of the Gospel and the uncon¬ 
vinced Jews, Mr. Greg maintains that the latter were the 
more faithful to their sacred books. The phenomena of the 
first- three Gospels are next examined sufficiently to explain 
the several hypotheses respecting the order and materials of 
their composition. The author rests on Schleiermacher’s con¬ 
clusion, that a number of fragmentary records of incident and 
discourse formed the groundwork, partly common, partly ex¬ 
clusive, of the triple Evangile. He thus removes us, in this 
portion of the Scriptures, from first-hand testimony altogether; 
and throw's upon internal criticism the task of discriminating 
between the original and reliable elements on the one hand, 
and those on the other which did not escape the accidents of 
floating tradition and the coloring of later ideas. This deli¬ 
cate task the author attempts ; and manifests throughout an 
acquaintance with the methods and models of the higher 
criticism, fully qualifying him to form the independent judg¬ 
ment wdiich he sums up in these words : — 

“ In conclusion, then, it appears certain that in all the 
synoptical Gospels we have events related that did not really 
occur, and words ascribed to Jesus which Jesus did not utter; 
and that many of these words and events are of great signifi¬ 
cance. In the great majority of these instances, however, 
this incorrectness does not imply any want of honesty on the 
part of the Evangelists, but merely indicates that they adopt¬ 
ed and embodied, without much scrutiny or critical acumen, 
"whatever probable and honorable narratives they found cur¬ 
rent in the Christian community.”—p. 137. 

The peculiarities of the fourth Gospel are next dealt with: 
its apparent polemic reference to the gnosis of the first and 
second centuries ; its absence of demoniacs and parables ; the 


274 


THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM. 


length, the mysticism, the dogma of its discourses, and their 
uniformity of complexion with the historian’s own narrative 
and reflections; the narrowness of its charity, and the apoc¬ 
ryphal appearance of its “ first miracle.” Without question¬ 
ing the probability that within the contents of this Gospel is 
secreted a nucleus of facts, Mr. Greg thinks the book so 
clearly imbued throughout with the writer’s idiosyncrasy, as 
to be inferior in historical value to the Synoptics; and the 
discourses of Jesus, in particular, must be regarded as free 
compositions by the Evangelist. In our author’s management 
of this subject there seems to us to be an unfavorable change. 
The style of thought peculiar to John, as well as that charac¬ 
teristic of Paul, lies out of the latitude native to him; and 
with every intention to be just in his appreciation, he fails, we 
think, to reach the point of sympathy from which the fourth 
Gospel should be judged. The realism of his mind makes 
him a better critic of the hard Judaical element of the Chris¬ 
tian Scriptures, with its objective distinctness and its moral 
beauty, than of the more ideal Gentile ingredients, where a 
subjective dialectic traces forms of thought in the intense fires 
of spiritual consciousness. 

In a separate discussion of the question of miracles they 
are restored to the subordinate position, as compared with 
moral evidence, assigned to them by the early Protestant 
divines. Adopting the position of Locke, that “ the miracles 
are to be judged by the doctrines, and not the doctrines by 
the miracles,” he can admit with the less pain his conviction, 
that, even in the instance of the resurrection of Jesus, the 
historical evidence is too conflicting and uncertain to bear the 
supernatural weight imposed upon it. He admits, indeed, 
that Jesus may have risen from the dead ; the Apostles mani¬ 
festly believed it; and that the marked change in their char¬ 
acter and conduct, from despair to triumph, affords the strong¬ 
est evidence of the sustaining energy of this belief. But, in 
our ignorance of the grounds of this belief, (the Gospels and 
book of Acts containing no correct or first-hand report of the 
facts,) it is impossible, he conceives, to form any rational esti> 


THE CREED OF CHRIST END 031. 


275 


mate of their adequacy. In Mr. Greg’s decision on this 
important point, we see the effect of his entrance on the 
problem of Christianity from the historical end. If, instead 
of addressing himself first to the Gospels which lie most re¬ 
mote from the source of the religion, and represent the latest 
and most constituted form of the primitive tradition, he had 
begun 3vith the earliest remains of Christian literature, and 
traced the doctrine of the resurrection from the Epistles of 
Paul into the story of the Evangelists, we think he would 
have arrived at a different conclusion. In dismissing the 
testimony of Paul as “ of little weight,” he throws away the 
main evidence of the whole case. We can understand the 
critic who, having put the miraculous entirely aside, as logi¬ 
cally inadmissible, makes light of the Pauline statements on 
this matter, and appeals to their writer’s openness to impres¬ 
sions of the supernatural in proof of a certain vitiating un¬ 
soundness of mind. But one who, like our author, regards 
this a priori incredulity as an unphilosophical prejudice, and 
upon whose list of real causes, never precluded from possible 
action, supernatural power finds a place, cannot consistently 
condemn another for believing in concrete instances what he 
himself allows in the general; and put the Apostle out of 
court, on the plea that we have no evidence but his assertion 
of liis intercourse with the risen Christ. Is not his assertion 
the only evidence possible of a subjective miracle ? and is 
there any ground for restricting supernatural agency to an 
objective direction ? No doubt, facts presented to external 
perception have the advantage of being open to more wit¬ 
nesses than one; and if it be deliberately laid down as a 
canon, that in no case can any anomalous event be admitted 
on one man’s declaration, we allow the consistency of refusing 
a hearing to the Apostle. But such a rule would only be an 
example of the futility of all attempts to reduce moral evi¬ 
dence to mathematical expression. Facts of the most ex¬ 
traordinary nature have always been, and will always be, 
received on solitary attestation ; and if so, it makes no logical 
difference whether they be called “ objective,” or “ subjective.” 


276 


THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM. 


A man has faculties for apprehending what passes within him, 
as well as what passes without; nor do we know any ground 
for trusting the latter which does not hold equally good for 
the former. If it be said that the reporter of a miracle not 
only announces what he sees or feels, — which we may accept 
on his veracity, — but proclaims its supernatural source, — 
which we may repudiate from distrust of his judgment, — the 
remark is perfectly just, only that it applies alike to all testi¬ 
mony, and not exclusively to miraculous reports. Our dis¬ 
position to receive the evidence of a witness assumed to be 
veracious, depends on our having the same preconceptions of 
causation with himself. In the ordinary affairs of life, this 
common ground is sure to exist, and therefore remains a mere 
latent condition of belief. But the slowness to admit a mira¬ 
cle arises from the failure of this common ground ; and if the 
hearer reserved in the background of his mind, and in equal 
readiness for action, the same supernatural power to which 
the witness’s assertion refers, he would feel no more tempta¬ 
tion to incredulity than in listening to some matter of course. 
The reluctance to believe, is proof that his store of causation 
is limited to the natural sphere ; and every phenomenon irre¬ 
ducible to this drops away from all hold upon his mind. As 
there is no such thing as a fact perceived without a judgment 
formed, so is there no belief in the attestation of a fact with¬ 
out reliance on the soundness of a judgment; and that re¬ 
liance depends on the hearer having the same list of causes 
in his mind as the witness. If, then, Mr. Greg holds, with 
Paul, that the power exists whence a subjective miracle might 
issue, and if from the nature of the case such miracle must 
remain a matter of personal consciousness, why reject the 
Apostle’s report of his experience ? In choosing from among 
the causes which both parties admit, it cannot be denied that 
Paul alights upon that which, if there , gives the easiest and 
most certain explanation; and to find a satisfactory origin for 
his impressions and conduct in natural agencies is so difficult, 
that critics would never attempt it, but to escape the acknowl¬ 
edgment of miracle. On his own principles we do not see 


TIIE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM. 


277 


how our author could excuse himself to the Apostle for reject¬ 
ing his testimony; which does but communicate, in the only 
conceivable way, that which is allowed to be possible enough, 
and which best clears up the mystery of an astonishing rev¬ 
olution in personal character, and in the convictions of an ear¬ 
nest and powerful mind. 

The whole question of miracles, however, loses its anxious 
importance with those who, like our author, would still, amid 
their constant occurrence, look to other sources for the cre¬ 
dentials of moral and religious truth. If anything is positively 
and incontrovertibly known respecting the Apostles, — and in 
proportion as we trust the synoptical Gospels must we allow 
Mr. Greg to extend the remark to their Master, — it is this: 
that whatever powers they exercised, and whatever commu¬ 
nications they received, were inadequate to preserve them 
from serious error; and from delivering to the world, as a 
substantive part of their message, a most solemn expectation 
which was not to be fulfilled. This fact, no longer denied by 
any reputable theologian, alone shows that, even in the pres¬ 
ence of the highest Christian authority, the natural criteria of 
reason and conscience cannot be dispensed with. In the ap¬ 
plication of these to the teachings and life of Christ, our 
author finds, if not any truths of supernatural dictation, at 
least the highest object of veneration and affection yet given 
to this world. 

“ Now on this subject,” he says, “ we hope our confession of 
faith will be acceptable to all save the narrowly orthodox. It 
is difficult, without exhausting superlatives, even to unexpres- 
sive and wearisome satiety, to do justice to our intense love, 
reverence, and admiration for the character and teachings of 
Jesus. We regard him, not as the perfection of the intellect¬ 
ual or philosophic mind, but as the perfection of the spiritual 
character, — as surpassing all men of all times in the close¬ 
ness and depth of his communion with the Father. In read¬ 
ing his sayings, we feel that we are holding converse with the 
wisest, purest, noblest Being that ever clothed thought in the 
poor language of humanity. In studying his life, we feel 
24 


278 


THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM. 


that we are following the footsteps of the highest ideal yet 
presented to us upon earth. 4 Blessed be God that so much 
manliness has been lived out, and stands there yet, a lasting 
monument to mark how high the tides of divine life have risen 
in the world of man ! ’ ” — p. 227. 

We differ altogether from our author in his notion of inspi¬ 
ration, and his reduction of Christianity within the limits of 
human resource. But we must say, that while there is such 
an estimate as this of what Jesus Christ was , it is a matter of 
subordinate moment what is thought about the mode in which 
he became so. 

By a process of “ Christian Eclecticism,” Mr. Greg draws 
forth from the Gospels the elements which he regards as 
characteristic of the religion of Jesus; distinguishing those 
which make it the purest of faiths from others which appear 
to him irreconcilable with a just philosophy. The doctrine 
of a future life is reserved for a separate discussion; the gen¬ 
eral result of which we know not how to describe, otherwise 
than by saying that the author discards all the evidence and 
yet retains the conclusion. All the arguments, metaphysical 
and moral, for human immortality, he condemns as absolutely 
worthless ; he confesses that he has no new ones to propose; 
he affirms that all appearances, without exception, proclaim 
the permanence of death, the absence of any spiritual essence 
in man, and the absolute sway of the laws of organization; 
yet, on the report of that very “ soul ” within him, whose ex¬ 
istence nature disowns, he holds the doctrine of a future ex¬ 
istence by the irresistible tenure of a first truth. We do not 
wonder that the rigor with which Mr. Greg has pushed his 
principles through other subjects of thought should relent at 
this point, and refuse to cast the sublimest of human hopes 
over the brink of darkness. We respect, as a holy abstinence, 
his refusal to silence the pleadings of the inner voice. But 
we admire his faith more than his philosophy ; and are aston¬ 
ished that he does not suspect the soundness of a scientific 
method which lands him in results he cannot hold. JNo scep¬ 
ticism is so fatal, — for none has so wide a sweep, — as that 


THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM. 


279 


which despairs of the self-reconciliation of human nature; 
which flings among our faculties the reproach of irretrievable 
contradiction; which sets up first truths against deductions, 
conscience against science, faith against logic. Ever since 
Kant balanced his Antinomies, and employed the gravitation 
of Practical reason to turn the irresolute scales of the Specu¬ 
lative , this unwholesome practice has been spreading, of assum¬ 
ing an ultimate discordance between co-existing powers of 
the mind. In the language of rhetoric or poetry, in the dis¬ 
cussion of popular notions on morals and religion, it would be 
hypercritical to complain of the antitheses of understanding 
and feeling, — sense and soul. But to an exact thinker it 
must be apparent that an ambidextrous intellect is no intel¬ 
lect at all; and that, were this all our endowment, the life of 
the wisest would be but a chase after mocking shadows of 
thought. The following words of our author, with all their 
tranquil appearance, describe a state of things which, were it 
real, might well strike us with dismay: — 

“ There are three points especially of religious belief, re¬ 
garding which intuition (or instinct) and logic are at variance, 
— the efficacy of prayer, man’s free-will, and a future exist¬ 
ence. If believed, they must be believed, the last without 
the countenance, the two former in spite t)f the hostility of 
logic.” — p. 303. 

This is absolute Pyrrhonism, and though said in the interest 
of religion, is subversive alike of knowledge and of faith. 
The pretended “ logic ” can be good for very little, which 
comes out with so suicidal an achievement as the disproof of 
first truths. The condition under which alone logic can exist 
as a science is the unity in the human mind of the laws of 
belief, — a condition which would be violated if any first 
truth contradicted another in itself, or in its deductions. The 
moment, therefore, such a contradiction turns up, a consistent 
thinker will either regard it as a mere semblance, and proceed 
to re-examine his premises, and test his reasoning; or he will 
treat it as real; and then it throws contempt on logic altogeth¬ 
er, and relegates it into impossibility. In neither case can his 


280 


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reliance incline to the logical side. Mr. Greg, however, sticks 
to his logic whenever, as in the two cases mentioned in the 
foregoing extract, it loudly negatives a point of religious belief; 
and abandons it only where it restricts itself to cold and dumb 
discouragement. A bolder distrust of his logic, and a firmer 
faith in the logic of nature, would perhaps have harmonized 
the differing voices of the intellect and the soul, blending them 
in a faith neither afraid to think nor ashamed to pray. 

Had our author been as familiar with the Catholic and Ar- 
minian divines, as with the literature of inductive science and 
Calvinistic theology, he would have known that there is a phi¬ 
losophy from which the religious intuitions encounter no re¬ 
pugnance ; and would, at least, have noticed its offer of medi¬ 
ation between Faith and Reason. He is, however, entirely 
shut up within the formulas of a different school, which press 
with their resistance on his religious feeling in every direction, 
and produce a .conflict which he can neither appease nor ter¬ 
minate. With an intellect entirely overridden by the ideas of 
Law und Necessity, no man can escape the force of the com¬ 
mon objections to any doctrine of prayer, or of forgiveness of 
sin; and if those ideas possess universal validity, the very 
discussion of such doctrines is, in the last degree, idle and 
absurd. But what if some mediaeval schoolman, or some im- 
pugner of the Baconian orthodoxy, were to suggest that, 
though Law is coextensive with outward nature, Nature is 
not coextensive with God, and that beyond the range where 
his agency is bound by the pledge of predetermined rules lies 
an infinite margin, where his spirit is free ? And what if, in 
aggravation of his heresy, he were to contend that Man also, 
as counterpart of God, belongs not wholly to the realm of 
nature, but transcends it by a certain endowment of free 
power in his spirit ? Having made these assumptions, on the 
ground that they were more agreeable to “ intuitive ” feeling, 
and not less so to external evidence, than the one-sidedness 
of their opposites, might he not suggest that room is now 
found for a doctrine of prayer? Not that any event bespoken 
and planted in the sphere of nature can be turned aside by 


THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM. 


281 


the urgency of desire and devotion; not that the slightest 
swerving is to be expected from the usages of creation, or of 
the mind ; wherever law is established — without us or with¬ 
in us — there let it be absolute as the everlasting faithfulness. 
But God has not spent himself wholly in the courses of cus¬ 
tom, and mortgaged his infinite resources to nature; nor has 
he closed up with rules every avenue through which his fresh 
energy might find entrance into life; but has left in the hu¬ 
man soul a theatre whose scenery is not all pre-arranged, and 
whose drama is ever open to new developments. Between 
the free centre of the soul in man, and the free margin of the 
activity of God, what hinders the existence of a real and 
living communion, the interchange of look and answer, of 
thought and counterthought ? If, in response to human aspi¬ 
ration, a higher mood is infused into the mind; if, in consola¬ 
tion of penitence or sorrow, a gleam of gentle hope steals in; 
and if these should be themselves the vivifying touch of di¬ 
vine sympathy and pity, what law is prejudiced? what faith 
is broken ? what province of nature has any title to complain ? 
And so, too, (might our mediaeval friend continue,) with re¬ 
spect to the doctrine of forgiveness. If men are under moral 
obligation, and God is a being of moral perfection, he must 
regard their unfaithfulness with disapproval. Of his senti¬ 
ments, the clear trace will be found in the various sufferings 
which constitute the natural punishment of wrong. These 
are incorporated in the very structure of the world and the 
constitution of life; and to persistence in their infliction, the 
Supreme Ruler is committed by the assurance of his constan¬ 
cy. They fasten on the guilty a chain which no pardon will 
strike off, but which he will drag till it is worn away. Not 
all the divine sentiment, however, is embodied in the physical 
consequences. Besides this determinate expression of his 
thought, written out on the finite world, there is an unex¬ 
pressed element remaining behind, in his infinite nature: on 
the visible side of the veil is the suggestive manifestation; on 
the invisible, is the very affection manifested. There is a 
personal alienation, a forfeiture of approach and sympathy, 
24 * 


282 


THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM. 


which would survive though creation were to perish and carry 
its punishments away; and would still cast its black shadow 
into empty space. This reserved sentiment, and this alone, is 
affected by repentance. But it is no small thing for the heart 
of shame to know this. The estrangement lasts no longer 
than the guilty temper and the unsoftened conscience ; and 
when, through its sorrow, the mind is clear and pure, the 
sunshine of divine affection will burst it again. In this the 
free Spirit of God is different from his bound action in nature. 
Long after he himself has forgiven and embraced again, ne¬ 
cessity—the creature of his legislation — will continue to 
wield the lash, and measure out with no relenting the remain¬ 
der of the penalty incurred; and he that yet drags his burden 
and visibly limps upon his sin, may all the while have a heart 
at rest with God. And thus is retribution — the reaping as 
we have sown — in no contradiction with forgiveness, — the 
personal restoration. 

How far such modes of thought as these would help to rec¬ 
oncile the conflicting claims, — and how they would stand re¬ 
lated to Mr. Greg’s terrible friend^ “ Logic,” we do not pre¬ 
tend to decide. We refer to them only as possible means of 
escaping — at least of postponing — his desolating doctrine, 
that intuitions may tell lies; and in support of our state- 
ment, that his theoretic view lies entirely within the circle of 
a particular school, — a school, morever, so little able to satis¬ 
fy his aspirations, that he is obliged to patch up a compromise 
between his nature and his culture. The curious amalgama¬ 
tion which has taken place in England, of the metaphysics of 
Calvin with the physics of Bacon, has produced, in a large 
class, a philosophical tendency, with which the distinctive sen¬ 
timents of Christianity very uneasily combine. The effacing 
of all lines separating the natural and moral, the limitation 
of God to the realm of nature, and the subjugation of all 
things to predestination, are among the chief features of this 
tendency, and the chief obstacles to any concurrence between 
the intellectual and the spiritual religion of the age. 

If some of the elements in the early Christianity are too 


THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM!. 


283 


hastily cancelled by our author, there is one sentiment whose 
inapplicability to the present day he exposes with an irresisti¬ 
ble force ; — that depreciating estimate of life which, however 
natural to Apostles “impressed W'ith the conviction that the 
world was falling to pieces,” is wholly misplaced among those 
for whose office and work this earthly scene is the appointed 
place. The exhortations of the Apostles, “ granting the prem¬ 
ises, were natural and wise.” 

I “But for divines in this day — when the profession of 
Christianity is attended with no peril, when its practice, even, 
demands no sacrifice, save that preference of duty to enjoy¬ 
ment which is the first law of cultivated humanity — to re¬ 
peat the language, profess the feelings, inculcate the notions, 
of men who lived in daily dread of such awful martyrdom, 
and under the excitement of such a mighty misconception; to 
cry down the world, with its profound beauty, its thrilling in¬ 
terests, its glorious works, its noble and holy affections; to ex¬ 
hort their hearers, Sunday after Sunday, to detach their heart 
from the earthly life, as inane, fleeting, and unworthy, and fix 
it upon heaven, as the only sphere deserving the love of the 
loving or the meditation of the. wise, — appears to us, we 
confess, frightful insincerity, the enactment of a wicked and 
gigantic lie. The exhortation is delivered and listened to as a 
thing of course; and an hour afterwards the preacher, who 
has thus usurped and profaned the language of an Apostle 
who wrote with the fagot and the cross full in view, is sitting 
comfortably with his hearer over liis claret; they are fondling 
their children, discussing public affairs or private plans in 
life, with passionate interest, and yet can look at each other 
without a smile or a blush for the sad and meaningless farce 

they have been acting!.Everything tends to prove 

that this life is, not perhaps, not probably, our only sphere, 
but still an integral one, and the one with which we are 
here meant to be concerned. The present is our scene of 
notion, — the future is for speculation and for trust. We 
firmly believe that man was sent upon the earth to live in it, 
to enjoy it, to study it, to love it, to embellish it, — to make 



284 


THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM. 


the most of it, in short. It is his country, on which he should 
lavish his affections and his efforts. Spartam nactus es — 
hanc exorna. It should be to him a house, not a tent, — a 
home, not only a school. If, when this house and this home 
are taken from him, Providence^ in its wisdom and its bounty, 
provides him with another, let him be deeply grateful for the 
gift, — let him transfer to that future, when it has become his 
present , his exertions, his researches, and his love. But let 
him rest assured that he is sent into this world, not to be con¬ 
stantly hankering after, dreaming of, preparing for, another, 
which may or may not be in store for him, but to do his 
duty and fulfil his destiny on earth, — to do all that lies in his 
power to improve it, to render it a scene of elevated happiness 
to himself, to those around him, to those who are to come 
after him. So will he avoid those tormenting contests with 
nature, — those struggles to suppress affections which God 
has implanted, sanctioned, and endowed with irresistible su¬ 
premacy,— those agonies of remorse when he finds that God 
is too strong for him, — which now embitter the lives of so 
many earnest and sincere souls; so will he best prepare for 
that future which we hope for, if it come; so will he best 
have occupied the present, if the present be his all. To de¬ 
mand that we love heaven more than earth, that the unseen 
should hold a higher place in our affections than the seen and 
familiar, is to ask that which cannot be obtained without sub¬ 
duing nature, and inducing a morbid condition of the soul. 
The very law of our being is love of life, and all its interests 
and adornments.” — pp. 271, 272. 

With all that is admirable in our author’s book, he contem¬ 
plates the whole subject from a point of view which exhibits 
it in very imperfect lights. He professes to treat of “ The 
Creed of Christendom.” Yet, in examining only the canoni¬ 
cal Scriptures and the primitive belief, he totally ignores the 
“ Creed ” of the greater part of “ Christendom,” namely, of the 
Catholic Church. For it is only Protestants that identify 
Christianity with the letter of the New Testament, and settle 
everything by appeal to its contents. According to the older 


THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM. 


285 


doctrine, Christianity is not a Divine Philosophy recorded in 
certain books, but a Divine Institution committed to certain 
men. The Christian Scriptures are not its source , but its 
first ‘product; not its charter and definition, but its earliest act 
and the expression of its incipient thought. They exhibit the 
young attempts of the new agency, as it was getting to work 
upon the minds of men and trying to penetrate the resisting 
mass of terrestrial affairs. They are thus but the beginning 
of a record which is prolonged through all subsequent times, 
the opening page in the proceedings of a Church in perpetu¬ 
ity ; and are not separated from the continuous sacred litera¬ 
ture of Christendom, as insulated fragments of Divine author¬ 
ity. The supernatural element which they contain did not die 
out with their generation, but has never ceased to flow through 
succeeding centuries. Nor did the heavenly purpose — precip¬ 
itated upon earthly materials and media — disclose itself most 
conspicuously at first; but rather cleared itself as it advanced 
and enriched its energy with better instruments. The sub- 
limest things would even lie secreted in the unconscious heart 
of the new influence, and only with the slowness of noble 
growths push towards the light; for the noise and obtrusive¬ 
ness of the human is ever apt to overwhelm the retiring si¬ 
lence of the divine. The disciples, who, when events were 
before their eyes, and great words fell upon their ears, “un¬ 
derstood not these things at . the time,” are types of all men 
and all ages; whose religion, coming out in the event, is 
known to others better than to themselves. A faith, there¬ 
fore, should be judged less by its first form than by its last; 
and at all events be studied, not as it once appeared, but in 
the entire retrospect of its existence. 

No doubt this doctrine of development is made subservi¬ 
ent, in the Romish system, to monstrous sacerdotal claims. A 
priestly hierarchy pretends to the exclusive custody, and the 
gradual unfolding, of God’s sacred gift. But sweep away this 
holy corporation; throw its treasury open, and let its vested 
right, of paying out the truth, be flung into the free air of 
history; gather together no Sacred College but the collected 


286 


THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM. 


ages; appeal to no high Pontiff but the Providence of God; — 
and there remains a far juster and sublimer view of the place 
and function of a pure Gospel in the world, than the narrow 
Protestant conception. Christianity becomes thus, not the 
Creed of its Founders, but the Religion of Christendom, to 
be estimated only in comparison with the faiths of other 
groups of the great human family; and the superhuman in it 
will consist in this, — the providential introduction among the 
affairs of this world of a divine influence, which shall gradu¬ 
ally reach to untried depths in the hearts of men, and become 
the organizing centre of a new moral and spiritual life. It is 
a power appointed — an inspiration given — to fetch by rever¬ 
ence a true religion out of man, and not, by dictation, to put 
one into him. 

For this end, it would not even be necessary that the bear¬ 
ers of the divine element should be personally initiated into 
the counsels whose ministers they are. Philosophy must 
know what it teaches ; but Inspiration , in giving the intensest 
light to others, may have a dark side turned towards itself. 
There is no irreverence in saying this, and no novelty: on the 
contrary, the idea has ever been familiar to the most fervent 
men and ages, of Prophets who prepared a future veiled from 
their own eyes, and saintly servants of heaven, who drew to 
themselves a trust, and wielded a power, which their ever- 
upward look never permitted them to guess. Nay, to no one 
was this conception less strange, than to the very man who, 
in his turn, must now have it applied to himself. With the 
Apostle Paul it was a favorite notion, that the entire plan of 
the Divine government had been a profound secret during the 
ages of its progress, and was opening into clear view only at 
the hour of its catastrophe. Not only was there more in it 
than had been surmised, but something utterly at variance 
with all expectation. Its whole conception had remained un¬ 
suspected from first to last; tmdiscerned by the vision of 
seers, and unapproaclied by the guesses of the wise. Never 
absent from the mind of God, and never pausing in its course 
of execution, it had yet evaded the notice of all observers; 


THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM. 


287 


and winding its way through the throng of nations and the 
labyrinth of centuries, the great Thought had passed in dis¬ 
guise, using all men and known of none. Nor was it only 
the pagan eye that, for want of special revelation, had been 
detained in darkness, or beguiled with the scenery of dreams. 
The very people whose life was the main channel of the 
Divine purpose did not feel the tide of tendency which they 
conveyed; the patriarchs who fed their flocks near its foun¬ 
tains, the lawgiver who founded a state upon its banks, the 
priests whose temple poured blood into its waters, and the 
prophets at whose prayer the clouds of heaven dropped fresh 
purity into the stream, — all were unconscious of its course ; 
assigning it to regions it should never visit, and missing the 
point where it should be lost in the sea. Nay, Paul seems to 
bring down this edge of darkness to a later time ; to include 
within it even the ministry of Christ and the Galilean Apos¬ 
tles ; to imply that even they were unconscious instruments 
of a scheme beyond the range of their immediate thought; 
and that not till Jesus had passed into the light of heaven 
did the time come for revealing, through the man of Tarsus, 
the significance of Messiah’s earthly visit, and its place in the 
great scheme of things. Paul, in claiming this as his own 
special function, certainly implies that, previous to his call, no 
one was in condition to interpret the secret counsels of God 
in the historic development of his providence. He feels this 
to be no reflection on his predecessors, no cause of elevation 
in himself; steward as he is of a mighty mystery, he is less 
than the least of all saints. He simply stands at the crisis 
when a conception is permitted to the world, which even “ the 
angels have vainly desired to look into ”; and though he may 
see more, he is infinitely less than the Prophets and the Mes¬ 
siah whose place it is given him to explain. He is but the 
interpreter, they are the grand agencies interpreted. He is 
but the discerning eye, they are the glorious objects on which 
it is fixed. 

In seeking, therefore, for the divine element in older dis¬ 
pensations, the Apostle would assuredly not consult the pro- 


288 


THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM. 


jects and beliefs of their founders and ministers. In his view, 
the very scheme of God was to work through these without 
their knowing what they were about; to let them aim at one 
thing while he was directing them to another; to pour through 
their life and soul an energy which should indeed fire their 
will and flow from their lips in their own best purposes, but 
steal quietly behind them for his; so that what was primary 
with them was perhaps evanescent with him; while that 
which was incidental, and dropped from them unawares, was 
the seed of an eternal good. What Moses planned, what 
David sung, what Isaiah led the people to expect, was not 
what Heaven had at heart to execute. Even in quest of 
God’s thought in the Christian dispensation, Paul does not 
refer to the doctrines, the precepts, the miracles of Jesus 
during his ministry in Palestine, — to the memorials of his life, 
or the testimony of his companions. He assumes that, at so 
early a date, the time had not yet come for the truth to 
appear, and that it was vain to look for it in the preconcep¬ 
tions of the uncrucified and unexalted Christ; who was the 
religion, not in revelation, but in disguise. If, therefore, any 
one had argued against the Apostle thus: “ Why tell us to 
discard the law ? your Master said he came to fulfil it. How 
do you venture to preach to the Gentiles, when Jesus de¬ 
clared his mission limited to the lost sheep of the house of 
Israel ? No vestiges of your doctrine of free grace can be 
found in the parables, or of redeeming faith in the Sermon on 
the Mount ”; — he would have boldly replied, that this proves 
nothing against truths that are newer than the life, because 
expounded by the death, of Christ; that God reveals by 
action, not by teaching; that no servant of his can understand 
his own office till it is past; and that only those who look 
back upon it through the interpretation of events, can read 
aright the divine idea which it enfolds. 

This view it w r as that made the Apostle so bold an inno¬ 
vator, and filled his Epistles with a system so different from 
that of the synoptical Gospels as almost to constitute a differ¬ 
ent religion. He had seized the profound and sublime idea 


THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM. 


289 


that, when men are inspired, the inspiration occupies, not their 
conscious thought and will, but their unconscious nature; 
laying a silent beauty on their affections, secreting a holy 
wisdom in their life, and, through the sorrows of faithfulness, 
tempting their steps to some surprise of glory. That which 
they deliberately think, that which they anxiously elaborate, 
that whicli they propose to do, is ever the product of their 
human reason and volition, and cannot escape the admixture 
of personal fallibility. But their free spontaneous nature 
speaks unawares, like a sweet murmuring from angels’ dreams. 
What they think without knowing it, what they say without 
thinking it, what they do without saying it, all the native 
pressures of their love and aspiration, these are the hiding- 
place of God, wherein abiding, he leaves their simplicity pure 
and their liberty untouched. The current of their reasoning 
and action is determined by human conditions and material 
resistances ; but the fountain in the living rock has waters that 
are divine. If this be true, then must we search for the 
heavenly element in the latencies rather than the prominen¬ 
cies of their life; in what they were , rather than in what they 
thought to do ; in the beliefs they felt without announcing; in 
the objects they accomplished, but never planned. We must 
wait for their agency in history, and from the fruit return to 
find the seed. 

It is not peculiar to Mr. Greg that, in estimating Christian¬ 
ity, he has neglected, and even reversed, this principle. All 
who have treated of it from the Protestant point of view have 
done the same. They have assumed that the religion was to 
be most clearly discerned at its commencement; that the di¬ 
vine thought it contained would be, not evolved, but obscured 
by time, and might be better detected in ideal shape at the 
beginning of the ages, than realized at the end; that its agents 
and inaugurators must have been fully cognizant of its whole 
scope and contents, and set them in the open ground of their 
speech and practical career. In the minds of all Protestants 
the Christian religion is identified exclusively with the ideas 
of the first century, with the creed of the Apostles, with the 
25 



200 


THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM. 


teachings of Christ. The New Testament is its sole deposi¬ 
tory, in whose books there is nothing for which it is not 
answerable. The consequence is a perpetual struggle be¬ 
tween untenable dogma and unprofitable scepticism. The 
whole structure of faith becomes precarious. If Luke and 
Matthew should disagree about a date or a pedigree; if Mark 
should report a questionable miracle; if John should mingle 
with his tenderness and depth some words of passionate in¬ 
tolerance ; if Peter should misapply a psalm, and Paul indite 
mistaken prophecies; above all, if Jesus should appear to 
believe in demonology, and not to have foreseen the futurities 
of his Church, — these detected specks are felt like a total 
eclipse; affrighted faith hides its face from them and shrieks ; 
and he who points them out, though only to show how pure 
the orb that spreads behind, is denounced as a prophet of evil. 
The peaceful and holy centre of religion is shaken by storms 
of angry erudition. Devout ingenuity or indevout acuteness 
spend themselves in vitiating the impartial course of histori¬ 
cal criticism; neither of them reflecting, that, if the topics in 
dispute are open to reasonable doubt, they cannot be matter 
of revelation , and may be calmly looked at as objects of natu¬ 
ral thought. It is a thing alike dangerous and unbecoming 
that religion should be narrowed to a miserable literary parti¬ 
sanship, bound up with a disputed set of critical conclusions,- 
unable to deliver its title-deeds from a court of perpetual 
chancery, whose decisions are never final. The time seems 
to have arrived for freeing the Protestant Christianity from 
its superstitious adhesion to the mere letter of the Gospel, and 
trusting more generously to that permanent inspiration, those 
ever-living sources of truth within the soul, of which Gospel 
and Epistle, the speeches of Apostles and the insight of Christ, 
are the pre-eminent, rather than the lonely, examples. The 
1primitive Gospel is not in its form, but only in its spirit, the 
everlasting Gospel. It is concerned, and, if we look to quan¬ 
tity alone, chiefly concerned, with questions that have ceased 
to exist, and interests that no longer agitate. It often reasons 
fiom principles we do not own, and is tinged with feelings 


THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM. 


291 


which we cannot share. Often do the most docile and open 
hearts resort to it with reverent hopes which it does not 
realize, and close it with a sigh of self-reproach or disap¬ 
pointment. With the deep secrets of the conscience, the 
sublime hopes, the tender fears, the infinite wonderings of the 
religious life, it deals less altogether than had been desired; 
and in touching them does not always glorify and satisfy the 
heart. We are apt to long for some nearer reflection, some 
more immediate help, of our existence in this present hour 
and this English land, where our enemies are not Pharisees 
and Sadducees, or our controversies about Beelzebub and his 
demons ; but where we would fain know how to train our 
children, to subdue our sins, to ennoble our lot, to think truly 
of our dead. The merchant, the scholar, the statesman, the 
heads of a family, the owner of an estate, occupy a moral 
sphere, the problems and anxieties of which, it must be owned, 
Evangelists and Apostles do not approach. Scarcely can it 
be said that general rules are given, which include these par¬ 
ticular cases. For the Christian Scriptures are singularly 
sparing of general rules. They are eminently personal, na¬ 
tional, local. They tell us of Martha and Mary, of Nicode- 
mus and Nathaniel, but give few maxims of human nature, or 
large formulas of human life: so that their spiritual guidance 
first becomes available when its essence has been translated 
from the special to the universal, and again brought down 
from the universal to the modern application. They are felt 
to be an inadequate measure of our living Christianity, and to 
leave untouched many earnest thoughts that aspire and pray 
within the mind. One divine gift, indeed, they impart to us, 
.— the gracious and holy image of Christ himself. Yet, some¬ 
how, even that sacred form appears with more disencumbered 
beauty, and in clearer light, when regarded at a little distance 
in the pure spaces of our thought, than when seen close at 
hand on the historic canvas. It is not that the ideal figure is 
a subjective fiction of our own, more perfect than the real. 
Every lineament, every gesture, all the simple majesty, all 
the deep expressiveness, we conceive to be justified and de- 


292 


THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM. 


manded by the actual portraiture : our least hesitating venera¬ 
tion sees nothing that is not there. But the original artists’ 
sympathy we feel to have been somewhat different from ours. 
They have labored to exhibit aspects that move us little; and 
only faintly marked the traces that to us are most divine. 
The view is often broken, the official dress turned into a dis¬ 
guise. The local groups’ are in the way; the possessed and 
the perverse obtrude themselves in front with too much noise; 
and the refracting cloud of prophecy and tradition is con¬ 
tinually thrown between. So that the image has a distincter 
glory to the meditating mind than to the reading eye. 

All this, oftener perhaps felt than confessed, is perfectly 
natural and innocent. It betrays the instinctive analysis by 
which our own affections separate the divine from the human. 
Paul was right in his principle, that in history the divine ele¬ 
ment lies hid; is missed at the time, even by those who are 
its vehicle; and does not parade itself in what they conscious¬ 
ly design, but lurks in what they unconsciously execute. It 
comes forth at “ the end of the ages,” — the retrospect of fifty 
generations instead of the foresight of one. This doctrine is 
true of individuals, in proportion as they are great and good. 
They labor at what is most difficult to them, and make it 
their end; but their appointed power lies in what is easiest. 
They chiefly prize the beliefs and the virtues most painfully 
won; but their highest truth dwells in the trusts they cannot 
help, and their purest influence in the graces they never 
willed, or knew to be their own. And it is true in history ; 
Paul himself signally illustrating the rule which he had ap¬ 
plied to earlier times. He had found, as he supposed, the 
Providence of the Past, which all had missed, from Moses to 
Christ; but in his turn he missed, as we perceive, the Prov¬ 
idence of the Future, from himself to us. The kind of agency 
which lie anticipated for Christ bears no resemblance to that 
which his religion has actually exercised. The only fault 
we can find with Mr. Thom’s admirable exposition is, that he 
attributes to the Apostle too distinct an apprehension of 
Christ as an impersonation of moral perfection ; and supposes 



THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM. 


293 


the purpose of the Pauline Christianity to have been the es¬ 
tablishment, as sole condition of disciplesliip, of reverential 
sympathy with the type of character realized in the Galilean 
life of Jesus. He says: — 

“ In contrast with such teachers ” (the Ritual and the Dog¬ 
matic), “ St. Paul, in our present chapter (1 Corinthians ii.), 
refers both to the matter and the manner of his own ministra¬ 
tion of the Gospel. He did not teach it as a Rhetorician , to 
attract admiration to himself, and give more lively impressions 
of Paul the Orator than of Christ the Redeemer from sin, nor 
as a Philosopher , to raise doubtful questions on metaphysical 
subjects, and become the leader of a speculative school; but 
as the Apostle of Jesus Christ, he proclaimed to the hearts of 
men the practical and life-giving Gospel, that ‘ God was in 
Christ reconciling the world unto himself’; that by the uni¬ 
versal Saviour all distinctions were for ever destroyed, and 
the whole family of God to grow into the common likeness of 
that well-beloved Son, — for that now neither circumcision 
availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but the renewal of the 
affections after the image of the Lord. Where could an en¬ 
trance be found for party divisions in a doctrine that pro¬ 
fessed nothing, that aimed at nothing, except to awaken the 
consciousness of sin within the heart, and, through trust in 
the God of holiness and love revealed in Jesus, to lead it to 
repentance and life? All who felt this love of Christ con¬ 
straining them, cleansing their souls by the divine image that 
had taken possession of their affections, and, through the mercy 
it proclaimed, encouraging their penitence to look for pardon 
from their God, must, of necessity, be one communion; for 
this Gospel sentiment and hope could create no divisions 
amongst those who had it, — and those who had it not were 
outside the Christian pale, and, so far, could make no schisms 
within it. Now, whence comes this Gospel sentiment, this 
new principle of life ? Were there any who had the exclu¬ 
sive power of communicating it? Did it require to be intro¬ 
duced by any intricate reasonings, by any subtle dialectics, 
which only the Masters in philosophy had at their command ? 
25 * 


294 


THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM. 


Not so, says St. Paul; — it is a spiritual feeling, excited by 
moral sympathy, as soon as Christ is offered to the hearts 
that are susceptible of the sentiment; — and in whatever bo¬ 
som there is not enough of the Spirit of God to cause that 
moral attraction to take place, neither philosophy nor outward 
forms, nor aught else but the divine image of goodness kept 
before the heart, can awaken the slumbering sensibilities 
which are the very faculties of spiritual apprehension, and 
which, as soon as they are alive, behold in Christ the solution 
of their own struggling and imperfect existence, their ideal 
and their rest. In regard to a sentiment so spiritual, a sym¬ 
pathy with the image of God, where is the possibility of intro¬ 
ducing party divisions, and violating Christian unity ? There 
can be but two parties,—those that have the sentiment, and 
those that have it not. All Christians constitute the one, — 
and as for the other, in relation to Christian unity, they are 
not in question. Such is the argument of St. Paul in this 
second chapter.” — p. 30. 

It may be quite true that the essential power of Christian¬ 
ity resides in the image, ever present to the heart of Chris¬ 
tendom, of a God resembling Christ, and loving those who 
aspire to approach him through the same resemblance. But 
we cannot find any traces of such a conception in the writ¬ 
ings of Paul. The “ faith ” on which he exclusively insisted 
would be very incorrectly defined, we conceive, as a rever¬ 
ence of Christ’s character as morally like God. If we may 
judge from the negative evidence of his letters, he appears to 
have had no insight into the interior of his Master’s earthly 
life, and no great concern about it. There is an entire absence 
of any moral picture of Jesus, who is presented in the Apos¬ 
tolic writings as an object, not of retrospective veneration, but 
of expectant reliance; not of admiring trust for personal qual¬ 
ities realized in a past career, but of hope grounded on his 
official destiny in the future. One beauty of his character is, 
indeed, appealed to in the Pauline writings, viz. his humil¬ 
ity and self-renunciation ; * but even this is recognized, not 


* See Philippians ii. 5-11. 




THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM. 


295 


on historical, but on theocratic grounds; it is illustrated, not 
by anything in his life, but by the fact of his death, conceived 
as a voluntary postponement of his theocratic prerogatives, 
and an abrogation of his exclusive nationality. He was a 
“spiritual” object to the Apostle of the Gentiles, not from 
perception of the inner marks and graces of his spirit, but 
from his being invisible and immortal, reserved in heaven 
under external escape from the conditions of earthly life. 
Mr. Thom’s doctrine is a happy development of modern truth 
from ancient error; but regarded as a mere interpretation, it 
perhaps sets down to the Apostle’s account a just moral ap¬ 
preciation of the past, instead of an erroneous conception of 
the Providence of the future. The religion of Christ has as¬ 
suredly turned out a very different phenomenon from any¬ 
thing that was anticipated at its origin. It was announced as 
a Kingdom; as the king did not come, it became a Repub¬ 
lic. It was conceived as a State; it grew up into a Faith. 
It was proclaimed as the world’s end; it proved to be a fresh 
beginning. It was to consummate the Law and the Proph¬ 
ets ; and it confounded both. It was to cover Pagan nations 
with shame and destruction; it embalmed their literature, and 
was transformed by their philosophy. It was to deliver over 
the earth to the pure and severe Monotheism of the Hebrews; 
which, however, it so relaxed as to provoke Islam into exist¬ 
ence to proclaim again the monarchy of God. Its subjects 
were to be gathered from the Jews and half-castes of the 
Eastern Synagogue; and its most signal glories have been 
among the Teutonic nations, and the then unsuspected con¬ 
tinents of the West. In every element of its internal power, 
in every direction of its external action, it has burst all the 
proportions, left behind all the expectations, with which it. 
was born; and how can we continue to try it by the standard 
of its origin ? Are we to say, that, having promised one thing 
and become another, it is not of God ? That might be well, 
if it had fallen short of its own professions,— disappointed us 
of dreams it had awakened of glory and delight. But if it 
has keen far better than its word; if, instead of winding up 


296 


THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM!. 


the world’s affairs, it has given them a new career; if for 
Messiah’s tame millennium we have the grand and struggling 
life of Christendom, and for his closed books of judgment the 
yet open page of human history; if for the earthly throne and 
sceptre of Christ, sweeping away the treasures of past civil¬ 
ization, we have his heavenly image and spirit, presiding over 
the re-birth of art, the awakening of thought, the direction of 
law, and the organism of nations; if from the dignity of out¬ 
ward sovereignty he has been raised to that of Lord of the 
living conscience, not superseding the soul, but exercising it 
with sorrow and aspiration; then, surely, in so outstripping 
itself, the religion should win a more exceeding measure of 
trust and affection. Had it only realized its first assurance^, 
we should have thought it divine; since it has so much sur¬ 
passed them, we must esteem it diviner. There is no reason 
for the common assumption that a religion must be purest in 
its infancy. It is no less surrounded then, than at each sub¬ 
sequent time, with human conditions, and transmitted through 
human faculties; and when delivered to the world, embodied 
in action or in speech, necessarily presents itself as a mixed 
product of divine insight and of human thought, — of the liv¬ 
ing present and the decaying past; a flash of heavenly fire 
on the outspread fuel upon the altar of tradition. So it is 
with the Scriptures of the New Testament; which are not 
the heavenly source, but the first earthly result and expres¬ 
sion of Christianity, and which present the perishable condi¬ 
tions as well as the indestructible life of the religion. Only 
by the course of time and Providence can these be disen^ao-ed 
from one another, and the accidents of place and nation fall 
away. If there dwell in the midst a divine productive ele¬ 
ment, the further it passes from the moment of its nativity, 
the clearer and more august will it appear. It is like the 
seed dropped at first on an unprepared and unexpectant 
ground; which in its earliest development yields but a strug¬ 
gling and scanty growth, but each season, as another gener¬ 
ation of leaves falls from the boughs, becomes the source, 
through richer nutriment, of fuller forms; till at length, when 


THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM. 


297 


it has spread the foliage of ages, making its own soil, and 
deepening the luxuriance of its own roots, a forest in all its 
glory covers the land, and waves in magnificence over conti¬ 
nents once bare of life and beauty. So is it with the germ of 
divine truth cast upon the inhospitable conditions of history; 
it is small and feeble in its earlier day; but when it has pro¬ 
vided the aliment of its own growth, and shed its reproductive 
treasures on the congenial mind of generations and races, it 
starts into the proportions of a Christendom, and becomes the 
shade and shelter of a world. 

Much, therefore, as we value all attempts to illustrate the 
first records of Christianity, and to detach what was purely 
human and transient in its original form, we think that the 
religion itself cannot acknowledge the competency of such 
investigations to decide upon its claims. From a verdict on 
its first works, it has a right to appeal for judgment upon the 
whole. It is the religion, not of John and Paul alone, but of 
Christendom; without a comparative estimate of whose moral 
and social genius, it can by no means be appreciated. The 
weakness and inadequacy of all narrower methods of defence 
will in the end drive the clergy to occupy this larger basis of 
operations. And the change will be not more favorable to 
the logic of their cause than to the charity of their disposition. 
So long as the Scriptures alone are taken as the standard, no 
more than one creed, at most, can be regarded as concurrent 
with the Christian faith. But when the entire existence of 
the religion through eighteen centuries is adopted as the meas¬ 
ure, the very interests of advocacy themselves require that 
the best construction rather than the worst be put upon the 
errors and jeccentricities of all churches within the compass 
of Christendom. The evidences would, in that case, be de¬ 
stroyed by exclusiveness, and widened in their foundations 
by comprehensiveness of temper; and the firmness of every 
disciple’s faith and the energy of his zeal would become as¬ 
surances, not of his limitation of mind, but of his largeness of 
heart. Instead of endless divisions, multiplied in the search 
after unity, we might hope to see the lines of separation be- 


298 


THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM. 


come ever fainter; and every test of Christianity withdrawn 
except that of moral sympathy with the spirit of Christ; a 
test which, as God alone can apply it, man cannot abuse; and 
according to which many that, in the ecclesiastic roll, have 
been first, shall be last, and the last first. 


TIIE ETHICS OF CHRISTENDOM:. 


The Temporal Benefits of Christianity exemplified in its In¬ 
fluence on the Social , Intellectual , Civil, and Political Con¬ 
dition of Mankind , from its first Promulgation to the pres¬ 
ent Day. By Robert Blakey. London. 1849. 

Small Books on Great Subjects. Edited by a few Well- 
Wishers to Knowledge. No. 19. On the State of Man 
subsequent to the Promulgation of Christianity. London. 
1851. 

The Connection of Morality with Religion; a Sermon , 
preached in the Cathedral of St. Patrick , at an Ordina¬ 
tion held by the Lord Archbishop of Dublin , Sunday, Sep¬ 
tember 21, 1851. By William Fitzgerald, A.M., Vicar 
of St. Ann’s, and Professor of Moral Philosophy in the 
University of Dublin. London. 1851. 

Of these works, the third treats theoretically, the others 
practically, of the relation of Christianity to human nature. 
The preacher seeks in the natural conscience for the moral 
ground and receptacle of revelation ; while the historians trace 
its moral operation in society and life. Were both tasks per¬ 
fectly performed, we should be furnished with a complete image 
of the religion at once in its idea and its expression ; should be 
able definitely to compare its promise with its achievements^ 
and to submit it, as a whole, to philosophical appreciation. But 
the two halves of the subject are exhibited with very unequal 
success. It is much easier to show the intended than the 



300 


THE ETIIICS OF CHRISTENDOM. 


actual influence of the Christian faith upon the character of 
its disciples, — to determine by a priori methods what it must 
be , than by an a posteriori induction to estimate what it has 
been , and is. Mr. Fitzgerald, as becomes a professor of ethical 
science, has well contended that the religion which he recom¬ 
mends from the pulpit is neither indifferent nor supercilious 
towards the morals which he teaches from the University chair, 
— but assumes their obligation, appeals to their authority, and, 
in its mode of reconciling the human will with the Divine, 
raises them into eternal sanctities. It addresses itself to man 
as a being already conscious of responsibility; and simply pro¬ 
poses to restore reason and conscience to that supremacy in 
fact which of right they can never lose. How far has this aim 
been visibly realized ? Are the traces of a Divine renovation 
clear upon the face of Christendom ? Is there the difference 
between ancient Greece and modern England, or between the 
empire and the papacy of Rome, which might be expected 
between an unregenerate world and a regenerate ? The his¬ 
torical answer to these questions is attempted by Mr. Blakey, 
with perhaps adequate resources of knowledge, but with so im¬ 
perfect an apprehension of the requisites of his argument, that 
his book, though often instructive in detail, is altogether inef¬ 
fective as a whole. He is content to select and enumerate the 
most salient and favorable points in the transition from an¬ 
cient to modern civilization, and to set them down to the credit 
of Christianity; without care to disengage the action of con¬ 
current causes, or to balance the account by reference to more 
questionable effects. A much finer analysis is needed, in 
order to draw from history its real testimony on this great 
matter; and nothing can well be more arbitrary, than to stroll 
through some fifteen centuries, and, gathering up none but the 
most picturesque and beneficent phenomena, weave them into a 
glory to crown the faith with which they co-exist. In Chris¬ 
tendom, all the great and good things that are done at all will 
of course be done by Christians, and will contain such share 
of the religious element as may belong to the character of the 
actor or the age; but before you can avail yourself of them 


THE ETHICS OF CHRISTENDOM. 


301 


in Christian Apologetics, it must be shown that, under any 
other faith, no social causes would have remained adequate 
either to produce them or to provide any worthy equivalent. 
Because Charlemagne, after baptizing the Saxons in their 
own blood, displayed a better zeal by establishing cathedral 
and conventual schools, therefore to put the horn-book of the 
liberal arts into the hand of his religion, while leaving the 
wet sword to stain his own; because chivalry blended in its 
vow “fear of God ” with “ love of the ladies,” therefore to 
trace all loyalty and courtesy to the doctrine of the Church; 
because the mediaeval schoolmen imported into every science 
the canons of Divinity, and decided between Realism and Nom¬ 
inalism on eucharistic principles, therefore to give the priest¬ 
hood all the honors of modern philosophy and intellectual 
liberty, — is, to say the least, very vulnerable logic and very 
superficial history. Of a far superior order is the little book 
“On the State of Man subsequent to the Promulgation of 
Christianity.” In a previous treatise, “ On the State of Man 
before the Promulgation of Christianity,” the author had passed 
under rapid review the ancient systems of civilization, — sta¬ 
tionary, progressive, aggressive; and having seized on their 
characteristic features, he now brings with him determinate 
points of comparison into his survey of the post-Apostolic 
times. The view which he spreads beneath your eye of the 
world, as it lay ready to afford a channel for the Christian 
faith, is remarkable for breadth and truth. Conducting you, 
with the wide picture in your mind, to the pure head-spring 
in Galilee, and keeping close to the stream as it descends and 
opens from these sequestered heights, lie enables you to see, 
reach by reach, where it fertilizes and where it destroys; the 
new fields of life it enters, the old landmarks of habit it over- 
‘ whelms. The author is not more familiar with the Christian 
Apologists and Fathers, than with the later Latin and revived 
Greek literature from Trajan to Aurelian; and by skilfully 
noting the moments when Pagan and Christian life not only 
stood in silent co-presence, but came into active contact, he 
brings out into clear relief the new type of character which 
26 


302 


THE ETHICS OF CHRISTENDOM!. 


formed itself within the communities of disciples. That type 
is so strikingly original, its features so conspicuously express 
an order of passions and ideas strange alike to the Hellenic 
and the Italian races, as to betray the creative action of some 
vast moral power unborrowed from the established civilization. 
When the free Roman breaks the bread of communion with 
slaves, — when the slippery Syrian forswears lying and theft, 
— when the heedless Greek changes his eagerness of the 
moment into a living for eternity, — when a people ignorant 
of Stoic maxims display a contempt of torture and death sub- 
limer than the ideal of the Porch, — an influence is plainly 
at work which has penetrated to hitherto unawakened depths 
of the human soul. The phenomenon is the more impressive, 
when regard is had to the materials from which the early 
Christian communities were gathered. It cannot be imagined 
that they were composed of elements particularly choice ; and, 
indeed, amid the universal corruption of morals and exhaus¬ 
tion of wholesome life, it is difficult to conceive how, if the 
Christian doctrine had enforced a rigorous selection, instead of 
indiscriminately inviting innocence and guilt, any decent ele¬ 
ments could have been collected. Without adopting Gibbon’s 
contemptuous estimate of the body of primitive believers, we 
cannot doubt that it comprised very mixed ingredients; w r e 
know that it contained great numbers of the servile class, and 
very few whose station and culture gave them access to the 
higher ideas familiar to the schools of philosophy : yet from 
these unpromising sources arose a society, which, in severity 
of morals, in intensity of affection, in heroism of endurance, 
reversed the habits of the world to which they belonged. It 
seems to us an idle question for sceptical criticism to raise, 
whether the religion of Christ comprised in its teachings any 
ethical element absolutely new. If genius had conceived it 
all before, life had not produced it till now; and the more you 
affirm the philosophers’ competency to think it, the more do 
you convict them of inability to realize it. But in morals 
scarcely can there be clear intellectual conception of principles 
not yet embodied in living character. As in the highest works 


THE ETHICS OF CHRISTENDOM. 


303 


of art, the thing seen is far other than the thing imagined and 
described ; not doctrines, but persons, are here the only ex¬ 
pression of the truth; and till they appear, ethical forms are 
but as the human clay without the vital fire. In the statement 
of thought, the early Christians, not excepting the Scripture 
writers, are rude and unskilled; and a taste formed from the 
study of Plato and Seneca may be offended by the rusticity of 
Mark, and the abruptness of Paul. But whoever can rise 
above the level of a merely intellectual critique, and embrace, 
with our anonymous author, the whole phenomenon of the first 
centuries of our era, will see a glow of self-denying faith, and 
a deep movement of conscience, affording manifest announce¬ 
ment of a new edition of human nature. 

That edition has now been extant for many centuries ; and 
is variously legible in the literature, the institutions, the pri¬ 
vate manners of Christendom. The Christian ideal of human 
life lies as an open book before us ; yet as a book so various 
in its versions, and so overlaid with comments, that the fresh 
flavor of its language, and even the finer essence of its thought, 
are in danger of being lost. The actual Christianity of each 
successive age, and each contemporary nation, is the express 
result, not only in its dogma, but in its life, of two component 
terms, — a given matter , and a given faculty of faith. How¬ 
ever full and constant the former may be in itself, the latter is 
perpetually variable with the knowledge and passions of the 
time, and the special genius of individual leaders ; nor can 
this variation of insight in the mind fail to neutralize some 
portion of truth, and to give disproportionate magnitude to 
others. The data supplied by inspiration itself form no ex¬ 
ception to this rule. Delivered into the charge of the human 
soul, they fall into the moulds of its recipient nature, take 
their immediate form from the laws of its life, and are reacted 
on from its independent activity. The immutable custody of 
anything by a finite thinking subject, involves the most evident 
contradiction; the very contact with human intelligence re¬ 
duces universal truth to partial, the permanent to the variable, 
the secure to the contingent. It is only in the essential Unity 


304 


TIIE ETHICS OF CHRISTENDOM. 


of Reason and Conscience in every age, that we find the 
means of correcting the aberrations and verifying the insight 
of all particular men. Not that we are to conceive of the 
human race collectively as one large person, of which individ¬ 
ual minds are vital organs, and which has a necessary growth 
and development, entitling each century to boast of advance 
beyond its predecessors. We know of no spiritual units, of 
no personalities, except each single and separate will; nor 
do we find anything in their mutual relation which necessarily 
determines them to uninterrupted improvement, and excludes 
the encroachment of degeneracy and falsehood. Indeed, no 
sorrier product is there of human conceit and ignorance than 
the cant of “ progress,” which assumes that every newest phase 
of thought is wisest. But if all men are endowed with radi¬ 
cally the same faculties, however various in their intensities 
and proportions, there is a court of appeal in permanent sit¬ 
ting, where the normal laws of intellectual and moral appre¬ 
hension are administered against all provincial prejudices and 
transient verdicts of error. In the long run, the healthy per¬ 
ceptions of good eyes will outvote the discoloring effects of 
all ophthalmic epidemics, how obstinate and wide soever they 
may be. And the moral vision of mankind will no less vindi¬ 
cate its natural rights, by returning again and again into clear 
discernments, and settled admirations, and discharging the illu¬ 
sory forms and false tints of each separate age. To deny the 
ethical competency of the mind for this office, — to say that 
there is no power given for deciding what, among the claim¬ 
ants on reverence, is really noble, true, and good, — is, with 
all its pietistic pretences, an act of the profoundest scepticism, 
washing away, as a quicksand, the only rock on which any 
faith can be built. It is to treat the durable source of truth 
as evanescent and uncertain, and shut out the possibility of all 
religion. On the other hand, to set up and idolize the life and 
thought of any one time as an unquestionable rule for all 
times, and stereotype it for unmodified reproduction, is to treat 
the evanescent as the durable, and build on whatever stands 
above the water, heedless whether it be the quicksand or the 


THE ETHICS OF CHRISTENDOM. 


305 * 


rock. Yet, strange to say, this particular superstition, and 
that general unbelief, — an apparent antithesis of error,—• 
usually meet in the same mind, and constitute together the 
chief theology of most visible churches. Having deposed and 
insulted the eternal sanctities, they coax and flatter the letter 
of Scripture to accept the vacant throne, and exchange the 
holy modesty of its administration for a universal empire of 
pretence. They drain off the springs of inspiration at their 
fountain-head, and turn all history into a plain of sand, that 
they may magnify their Hebrew reservoir as the world’s sole 
supply; forgetting that, when cut off from the running waters, 
the choicest store loses its fresh virtues, and the fairest lake, 
shut up without exit, turns into a Dead Sea. In contradiction 
of both errors, we shall assume that transitory elements can¬ 
not fail to mix themselves with the expression of the purest 
inspiration, — the horizon of human relations and expressible 
things around even the divinest soul being limited; and 
that, as the inspiration tries itself upon age after age, bringing 
into distinct consciousness now one side of truth and now 
another, it becomes more and more possible to find its essence 
and eliminate its accidents, to save its catholic beauties apart 
.from its sectional distortions. The Christian ideal of life is 
not to be looked for in what is special to the Crusader or the 
Quaker, — to Puritan or Cavalier, — to Platonists of the sec¬ 
ond century or Aristotelians of the twelfth, — to Aquinas or 
Luther, — to John or Paul; but in such sentiment as was 
common to them all, and attached to them as citizens of Chris¬ 
tendom. When this element is disengaged from all that en¬ 
cumbers it, it will be found pervading and animating still 
whatever is noblest in our modern life ; while all that is nar¬ 
row, and weak, and unworthy in the moral doctrine of our 
age, springs from a forced attempt to perpetuate the acciden¬ 
tal modes of the Apostolic period. 

Every one is sensible of a change in the whole climate of 
thought and feeling, the moment he crosses any part of the 
boundary which divides Christian civilization from Heathen¬ 
dom ; yet of nothing is it more difficult to render any compen- 
26 * 


306 


THE ETHICS OF CHRISTENDOM. 


dious account. It is easy to enumerate in detail tlie phenom¬ 
ena which are modified or disappear; just as on entering a 
new physical region the travelling naturalist may register the 
new species of plants and animals, that, one after another, pre¬ 
sent themselves to his research. But these do not paint the 
scene before even the learned eye; they are the separate out- 
comings of a great life-thrill, into whose current their roots 
penetrate ; the landscape, as a whole, speaks differently to the 
mind, and the whole heaven and earth seem pregnant with a 
thought unfelt before. To read off that thought, requires an 
apprehension the converse of the analytic vision of science. 
The same difficulty occurs when we endeavor to seize the la¬ 
tent principle of a natural realm of history. Such principle, 
however, there must be. Beneath all the moving tides of 
Christian thought there lie still depths that supply them all, 
and a centre of equilibrium around which they sweep. We 
believe that the fundamental idea of Christendom may be 
described to be the ascent through Conscience into commun¬ 
ion with God. Other religions have lent their sanctions to 
morality, and announced the Divine commands to the human 
will; but only as the laws of an outward monarch within 
whose sovereignty we lie, and who, ruling in virtue of his 
almightiness, has a right to obedience, ordain as he will. Other 
religions, again, have aimed at a union with God. But the 
conditions of this union, dictated by misleading conceptions of 
the Divine nature, have missed on every side the true level of 
human dignity and peace. Manichseism, deifying the antith¬ 
esis of matter, takes the path of ascetic suppression of the 
body. The Indian Pantheist, imagining the Divine Abyss as 
the realm of night and infinite negation, strives to hold in the 
breath and sink into self-annulment. Plato, seeing in God 
the essence of thought, demands science and beauty, not less 
than goodness, as the needful notes of harmony with him, and 
appoints the approach to heaven by academic ways. The 
modern Quietists, worshipping a Being too much the reflection 
of their own tenderness, have lost themselves in soft affections, 
relaxing to the nerves of duty, and unseemly in the face of 


THE ETHICS OF CHRISTENDOM. 307 

eternal law. Christianity alone has neither crushed the soul 
by mere submission, like Mohammedanism; nor melted it away 
in the tides of infinite being, like Pantheistic faiths; but has 
saved the good of both, by establishing the union with God 
through a free act of the individual soul. Assigning to him a 
transcendent moral nature, sensitive to the same distinctions, 
conservative of the same solemnities, which awe and kindle 
us, it singles out the conscience as the field where we are to 
meet him, — where the bridge will be found of transit between 
the human and the divine. No fear or servility remains with 
an obedience consisting, not in mystic acts and artificial habits, 
but in the free play of natural goodness; and rendered, not 
in homage to a Supreme Autocrat, but in sympathy with a 
Mind itself the infinite impersonation of all the sanctities. 
Nor are any dizzy and perilous flights incurred by a devotion 
which meets its great Inspirer in no foreign heaven, but in 
the higher walks of this home life, and misses him only in 
what is mean and low. The place assigned in Christianity 
to the moral sentiments and affections has no parallel in any 
other religion. The whole faith is as an unutterable sigh 
after an ideal perfection. Holiness eternal in heaven, incar¬ 
nate on earth, and to be realized in men, — this is the circle 
of conceptions in which it moves. Its very name for the In¬ 
spiration which mediates all its work, expresses the same 
thing. It is not simply an evOowiao-fios, — not gavla, — not 
^ax^eia, — but the nvevfxa ayiov. The Daemon of Socrates — 
the least heathenish of heathen men — was but an intellect¬ 
ual guide, and checked his erring judgment; the Holy Spirit 
guards the vigils of duty, and succors the disciple’s tempted 
will. This profound sense of interior amity with God through 
faithfulness to our highest possibility, appears in the Christian 
Scriptures under two forms, — the positive and the negative, — 
each the complement of the other. In the Gospel, Jesus him¬ 
self, as befits the saintly mind lifted above the strife of passion, 
describes the aspiration after goodness as the native guidance 
of the soul to her source and refuge. In the Epistles, Paul, 
pouring forth the confessions of a fiery nature, proclaims the 


308 


THE ETHICS OF CHRISTENDOM. 


sense of sin to be the contracted hinderance that bars the as¬ 
cent, and against which the wings of the struggling will beat 
only to grow faint. These representations are evidently but 
the two sides of the same doctrine seen from the heavenly and 
from the earthly position. Whether we are told what the 
good heart will find, or what the guilty must lose, the lesson 
equally recognizes the Divine authority of conscience. The 
benediction and the curse are but the bright and the dark 
hemisphere of one perfect truth. The Apostle, standing in 
the shadow of the world’s night, and regarding its averted 
face, dwells on the gloom of alienation, — the “ foolish heart 
that is darkened,” — the “ reprobate mind ” from which God 
is hid. Christ, conscious of the holy light, and knowing how 
it penetrates the folds of willing natures, and wakes what else 
would sleep, speaks rather of the glory that is not denied, and 
utters that deepest of blessings, — “ The pure in heart shall 
see God.” To this bright side also the Pauline view in the 
end comes round. For though in him we miss that recog¬ 
nition of a natural human goodness which gives such grace 
and sweetness to many of the parables; though in his scheme 
the human will has not only betrayed its trust, but hopelessly 
crippled its powers; yet he does not leave it in the collapse 
of paralysis, with the hard saying that it can in no wise lift 
up itself, but points to a hope that bends over it from above. 
The soul that is too far gone to act, may still be capable of 
love; if unable to trust itself, it may trust another; if it can¬ 
not command its volitions, it may surrender its affections ; can 
reverence, can aspire, can yield its hand, like a child, to an 
angel of deliverance. Beyond the precincts of this world is 
an Image of divine excellence and beauty, — one recently 
withdrawn from human history, and soon to have a more au¬ 
gust return. It is but to turn the eye and give the heart to 
that ideal and immortal perfection, and in the light of so pure 
a love, the clouds will clear from the conscience, and lift them¬ 
selves as a nightmare away; the lame will, forgetting its in¬ 
firmities, will spring up and walk ; and the restoration, impos¬ 
sible by flight from deformity and ill, will come through the 


THE ETHICS OP CHRISTENDOM. 


309 


attraction of a Divine sanctity ana goodness. Thus does the 
Apostle snatch the disciple at last into the right perceptions 
which Christ assumes to be possible at first; and in both its 
primitive developments the Christian religion implies the com¬ 
munion of man with God through purity of heart. 

To this sentiment, conveyed with living realization in the 
person of Jesus Christ, may be referred whatever is distinc¬ 
tively great in Christian ethics. Proposing, as an end within 
their reach, the ascent of the soul to a divine life, and as the 
means, a simple surrender to its own highest intimations, they 
have melted away the interval "between earthly and heavenly 
natures, — not by humanizing God, but by consecrating man. 
In treating the lower desires of sense and self as the steams 
that intercept, the tender reverences as the clear air that 
transmits, the light of lights, they have struck the deepest 
truth of human consciousness. Hence the temper of aspira¬ 
tion, — the earnest ideality, — the sense of infinite want, with 
faith in infinite possibilities, — the sorrowful unrest in the 
present, with irrepressible struggle for a better future, — 
which are impressed on the poetry, the art, the social life of 
Christendom. Unlike the expression of the Hellenic mind, 
they are rather a prayer for what might be, than a joy in 
what is. Hence, too, the predominance of the psychological 
and subjective element in the philosophy of modern times, 
and the conversion of the ancient “ metaphysics ” into the form 
of “mental science.” Man would never have ceased to be 
merged in nature, and registered merely as a part of its con¬ 
tents ; his self-knowledge would not have vindicated its inde¬ 
pendent rights; his mind would not have been recognized as 
the court of record for the moral legislation of the universe, — 
had not his religion taken him deep into himself, and from a 
new point shown him his relation to all else ; kindling his own 
consciousness to a point of intense brilliancy, in correspond¬ 
ence with a divine centre, which must be sought on the same 
axis of being, — like the two determining foci of an infinite 
curve, that find each other out, while the realm of determined 
nature lies around, as the configured area, or the bounding 


310 


THE ETHICS OF CHRISTENDOM. 


curve. Of the external world, indeed, too little account has 
been made in the faith of Christians. They have not cared 
to recognize it as the shrine of immanent Deity; — have 
stood in uneasy relations to it; often inimical to it; sometimes 
trying to get rid of it as an illusion; usually regarding it as a 
foreign object, like a great statue on the stage of being, with 
only stony eyes and ears for the real play of passions that 
whirl around. Existence, in its essence, has been felt as an 
interview between man and God, at which space and nature 
have been collaterally present, but in which it was not appar¬ 
ent what they had to do. Physical science and the plastic 
arts may have reason to complain of the depressing influence 
of this imperfect view, and of the hard necessity under which 
it places them of pursuing their ends with only scanty and 
grudging recognition from religion. But, for the philosophic 
knowledge of human nature, and the practical regulation of 
human society, this isolation of the soul within its own con¬ 
sciousness,— this concentrated personality, — this vivid inter¬ 
change of life with God without diffusion through benumbing 
media, — must be held eminently ennobling. 

If, from the fundamental Christian sentiment, we descend 
to the scheme of Applied Morals which it organized and in¬ 
spired, the principle still vindicates itself in its results. The 
great problems of life are supplied from two sources, — the 
Persons that may engage pur affections, and the Pursuits that 
may invite our will. The light in which the personal rela¬ 
tions are presented before the eye of Christendom is undeni¬ 
ably benign and true. It has never been obscured without 
the social spread of injustice and discontent; nor ever cleared 
again, but as the precursor of reformation. That every 
human soul has its sacred concerns and its divine communion, 
is the simplest of thoughts; but so deep and moving, that, 
where it is received and acknowledged, it calls up angelic vir¬ 
tues ; where it is insulted and denied, it lets slip avenging 
fiends. Wherever it is sincerely held, it secures that rever¬ 
ential feeling towards others, beneath whose spell the selfish 
passions sleep, and without which the precept of courtesy and 


THE ETHICS OF CHRISTENDOM. 


311 


the definition of rights are an ineffectual form. Power loses 
its insolence, and dependence its sting, where their mutual 
relation does not carry the whole individuality with it, but 
stops with the limits of social and political convenience, and 
lies under the restraining protection of a supreme equality 
before God. The “ Fraternity ” that is the offspring of po¬ 
litical theories, and aims to neutralize by fellow-citizenship 
the diversities and antipathies of nature, is often the watch¬ 
word of envy and egotism, shouted by the voice of hatred, and 
announcing the deed of violence. It is for want of faith in 
that highest brotherhood of worship and responsibility which 
Christianity assumes, that impatient schemes are formed for 
artificially equalizing the weak and the strong, and abolishing 
the relations of necessary dependence. Nor, where that faith 
is absent, can they ever be answered so as to satisfy the feel¬ 
ing from which they spring. They may be shown to be im¬ 
practicable, and crushed by the relentless argument of fact; 
but the fact will be protested against as unnatural, and the 
impossibility will seem a cruelty. How differently is this 
topic handled by the logic of .science and the sentiment of 
religion ! How much less justly does the former draw the 
line between natural subordination among men and tyrannous 
oppression, than the latter! Aristotle undertakes the defence 
of slavery on grounds both of philosophy and of experience. 
Nature, he contends, pursuing a definite end in every act of 
creation, assigns to some things, from their very origin, a des¬ 
tiny to rule, while imposing on others a necessity of being 
ruled. Wherever a plurality of parts concur to form a gen¬ 
eral whole, dominant and subordinate elements present them¬ 
selves. Even within the inanimate realm this is apparent, as 
in the case of harmony in music. But it is chiefly conspic¬ 
uous in the sphere of animal existence; the body being, by 
nature, servitor, of which the soul is lord. In the highest 
stage of animate being, the constitution of well-organized men, 
this law comes into the clearest light; for here the soul sways 
the body with absolute command, while reason exercises over 
the passions the prerogatives of a royal and constitutional 


312 


THE ETHICS OF CHRISTENDOM. 


power; and were equality to be substituted for these modes of 
subjection, mischief would ensue on all sides. Not less evi¬ 
dently does Nature announce the dependence of inferior on 
superior in the rank allotted to the brutes in relation to man; 
and again, in the case of the two sexes, of which the male, as 
the more distinguished, is rendered dominant. The same ne¬ 
cessary law adjusts the positions of mankind inter se. All 
those who are as intrinsically inferior to their neighbors as 
the body to the soul, or the brute to the man, — (and this is 
precisely the case of the mere manual laborer,) — are slaves 
by nature; and for them, as for the‘body and the brutes, it is 
better to be servile than to be free. Any man who can be 
made property of by another, and who is competent to under¬ 
stand a master’s intelligence without a spontaneous stock of 
his own, is naturally a slave. Such a one performs functions 
in the world not essentially distinguished from those of the 
domestic animals; the destiny of both is to contribute their 
corporeal energies to the service of society; and creatures fit 
for this alone are brought into the slave-market by Nature 
herself. Consistently with this conception of the laborer as a 
living tool (SovXos ep\j/vxou opyavov), Aristotle lays it down that 
the relation of master and slave admits no rights, and excludes 
friendship. To our modern worshippers of strength, this will 
appear commendable doctrine, very much because they have 
themselves relapsed into the old Hellenic way of studying the 
problems of the universe; descending, in the Pantheistic 
method, from the whole upon the parts; fetching rules from 
the wider sphere (therefore the lower) to import into the nar¬ 
rower; entering the human world from the physical, — the 
oiKovpeuT] from the Koo-pos ; approaching society as a specialty 
superinduced on a groundwork of nomadic barbarism; and 
determining the functions of the individual as member of the 
vital organism of the state. So long as this logical strategy 
is allowed, the Titans will always conquer the gods; the 
ground-forces of the lowest nature will propagate themselves, 
pulse after pulse, from the abysses to the skies ; and right 
will exist only on sufferance from might. But there is a 


THE ETIIICS OF CHRISTENDOM. 


313 


heaven, after all, which the most trenchant giant cannot 
storm, and where justice and sanctity reserve a quiet throne. 
Without disputing the inequality of gifts and consequent law 
of natural ranks, religion qualifies it by an addition which 
overarches and absorbs it. Were man only the choicest, most 
intelligent, most gregarious of the mammalia, — were the theory 
of his affairs a mere extension of natural history, — we might 
reasonably discuss, in Aristotle’s way, the conditions under 
which he may fitly be put in harness. But there is in him an 
element that takes him beyond the range of a Pliny or a Cu¬ 
vier, that lifts him out of the kingdom of nature and gives him 
kindred with the preternatural and divine. He is not simply 
an instrument for achieving a given fraction of a universal 
end, but has a sacred trust which, on its own account, he is 
empowered and commissioned to discharge. He is wmtched 
by the eyes of infinite Pity and Affection, braced for his faith¬ 
ful work, succored in his fierce temptations. The conditions 
of dutiful, loving, noble life must be preserved to him. Let 
his task, indeed, be suited to his powers; and if he cannot 
rule, by all means let him serve; but still with a margin and 
play of spiritual freedom secure from encroachment and con¬ 
tempt. Those on whom Heaven lays the burden of duty no 
power on earth may strip of rights. The conscience with 
which the Highest can commune, the spirit which is not too 
mean for His abode, can be no object of slight and scorn from 
men. By law and usage ^you may have the disposal of anoth¬ 
er’s lot and labor; but in the reality of things the lord of a 
province may be less than the conqueror of a temptation. 
You may be Greek, and he barbarian ; but in the heraldry of 
the universe, the blood of Agamemnon is less noble than the 
spirit of a saint. In thus snatching the individual, as bearer 
of a holy trust, from the crush of nature and the world, Chris¬ 
tianity became the first human religion, — that absolutely took 
no notice of race and sex and class. It created a new order 
of inalienable rights, neither the heritage of birth, nor the 
franchise of a state, but inherent in the moral capabilities of a 
The free opening of sanctity and immortality to every 
27 


man. 


314 


THE ETHICS OF CHRISTENDOM. 


willing heart could not fail to exercise an intense influence on 
the better portion of a world, like the declining empire of 
Rome, sickened with corruption and confused with unmanage¬ 
able oppressions. That it did so, is proved by the whole 
tenor of the early Christian literature ; and the effect is well 
described and accounted for by the writer “ On the State of 
Man subsequent to the Promulgation of Christianity.” 

“ The mockery of adoring as gods the licentious tyrants 
who had occupied the imperial throne, seems to have put an 
end to everything like religious feeling among the nations 
under the sway of Rome. The free satire of Lucianus shows 
how completely it had faded away, for it introduces the gods 
of Olympus complaining that they were starving for lack of 
offerings; not altogether because Christian or philosophic doc¬ 
trines prevailed widely, but rather on account of the total 
indifference of the people to their ancient mythology; for 
even if it ever had symbolized the truth, its meaning was now 
forgotten; and, even so far back as the time of Cicero, had 
become totally unintelligible to the learned, as well as to the 
multitude. It was useless, therefore, and wanted but a slight 
impulse from without to overthrow it. But to the philosopher 
who was in earnest in his pursuit of this truth, buried under 
the rubbish of time, the doctrine of Christ afforded it; there 
he found all that the master minds whom he honored had 
taught and hoped; but he found it simplified, purified, and 
confirmed by sanctions such as Plato had wished for, but 
scarcely dared to expect; — to the Roman patrician, if any 
there were who still looked back with fond memory to the 
purer morals and stern courage of his forefathers, the Chris¬ 
tian simplicity of manners and firm endurance of torture and 
death was the realization of what he had heard of and ad¬ 
mired, but scarcely seen till then; — to the slave, sighing 
under oppression and condemned to hopeless bondage, the 
doctrine of the Gospel gave all that was valuable in life; the 
Christian slave was the friend of his Christian master, par¬ 
took of the same holy feast, shared the same painful but 
glorious martyrdom; he was raised at once to all his intellect- 


THE ETHICS OP CHRISTENDOM. 


315 


ual rank, found freedom beyond the grave, and lived already 
in a happy immortality; — to the woman, degraded in her 
own eyes no less than in those of the tyrant to whose lusts 
she was the slave, it offered a restoration to all that is most 
dear to the human race; it offered intellectual dignity, equal¬ 
ity before God, purity, holiness. The Christian woman could 
die; she could not, therefore, unless consenting to it, be again 
enslaved to the vile passions of men; before God she was 
free, and with Him she trusted to find shelter when the hard 
world left her none. Can we wonder, then, that Christianity 
found votaries wherever a mind existed that sighed after bet¬ 
ter things ? for the preacher of Nazareth had at last expressed 
the thought which had been brooding in the minds of so many, 
who had found themselves unable to give it utterance.” — 
p. 55. 

Nor was it merely within the pale of the Christian frater¬ 
nity that relations of mutual reverence and tenderness attested 
the power of an ennobling faith. Intensity of internal com¬ 
bination is often balanced, in religious brotherhoods, by vehe¬ 
mence of external repugnance; and were we to accept the 
fiery declamation of Tertullian as fairly expressing the spirit 
of his fellow-believers, we could ill defend them from the 
charge of fierce antipathy to the persons as well as the creed 
of their Pagan neighbors. But many silent mercies appear 
which contradict this loud intolerance. When the Decian 
persecution and its attendant tumultuary movements had filled 
Alexandria with such slaughter as to breed pestilence from 
the bodies of the dead, the Christians, instead of sullenly per¬ 
mitting the physical calamity to avenge their cause, assumed 
the duties of public nurses, and performed the loathsome tasks 
from which priests and magistrates had fled. Referring to 
this occasion, the author just cited says : — 

“ The plague made its appearance with tremendous violence, 
and desolated the city, so that, as Dionysius, the Christian 
bishop, writes, there were not so many inhabitants left of all 
ages, as heretofore could be numbered between forty id sev¬ 
enty. In this emergency the persecuted Christians forgot all 


316 


THE ETHICS OF CHRISTENDOM. 


but their Lord’s precept, and were unwearied in their attend¬ 
ance on the sick; many perishing in the performance of this 
duty by taking the infection. ‘ In this way,’ says the bishop, 
with touching simplicity, ‘ the best of the brethren departed 
this life; some ministers, and some deacons/ the heathens 
having abandoned their friends and relations to the care of 
the very persons whom they had been accustomed to call 
4 Men-haters.’ A like noble self-devotion was shown at Car- 
thnge when the pestilence which had desolated Alexandria 
made its appearance in that city, and, I quote the words of a 
contemporary, 1 All fled in horror from the contagion, aban¬ 
doning their relations and friends as if they thought that by 
avoiding the plague any one might also exclude death alto¬ 
gether. Meanwhile the city was strewed with the bodies, or 
rather carcasses of the dead, which seemed to call for pity 
from the passers-by, who might themselves so soon share the 
same fate; but no one cared for anything but miserable pelf; 
no one trembled at the consideration of what might so soon 
befall him in his turn; no one did for another what he would 
have wished others to do for him. The bishop hereupon 
called together his flock, and setting before them the example 
and teaching of their Lord, called on them to act up to it. 
He said, that if they took care only of their own people, they 
did but what the commonest feeling would dictate ; the ser¬ 
vant of Christ must do more; he must love his enemies, and 
pray for his persecutors; for God made his sun to rise and his 
rain to fall on all alike, and he who would be the child of God 
must imitate his Father.’ The people responded to his appeal; 
they formed themselves into classes, and those whose poverty 
prevented them from doing more gave their personal attend¬ 
ance, while those who had property aided yet further. No 
one quitted his post but with his life.” — p. 162. 

This self-devotion in times of distress, strangely contrasting 
with habits and temper apparently unsocial, has too steadily 
reappeared in every earnest church not to be accepted as a 
Christian characteristic. During the fatal famine and epi¬ 
demic which desolated Antioch in the third century, the Pagan 


THE ETIIICS OF CHRISTENDOM. 


317 


governor, when urged by the inhabitants to make authoritative 
arrangements for relieving the sufferings of a perishing popu¬ 
lace, replied that “ The gods hated the poor ”; while the 
Christians, prevailingly poor themselves, plunged into the 
centre of the danger, and carried into the recesses of fever 
and despair the quiet presence of help and hope. If disciples 
have thus freely rendered to “those without” services which 
Pagans refused to one another, it is not simply in stiff obedi¬ 
ence to a precept of love to their enemies, but from a heart¬ 
felt sentiment of honor for human nature and consequent 
tenderness of human life. There was no man who, though 
he might be a persecutor to-day, might not be a comrade to¬ 
morrow ; he had a soul susceptible of consecration ; and day 
and night the gates of the Church were ready to fly open to 
the touch of .penitence; and whether he throws off the mask 
of delusion or not, he must be treated as a brother in disguise. 
Only by reference to this conception of all men as possible 
subjects of sanctifying change, can the fact be explained, that 
even where the creed has opened an infinite gulf between 
believer and unbeliever, the active charities have detained 
in lingering embrace the persons whom the theoretic fancy 
has flung into the ultimate horrors. A religion that is 
superior to the external distinctions of lineage and class, and 
draws its lines only by the invisible coloring of souls, must 
ever be a religion open to hope, and therefore apt to love. 
Even where the severest doctrine of exclusion has prevailed, 
the fundamental sentiment of Christian faith has saved the 
heart from the most withering of all passions, — the blight of 
scorn. Human nature may appear beneath the eye of an 
austere believer in an awful , but never in a contemptible light. 
The very crisis in which it is suspended can belong to no 
mean existence. What it has lost is too great a glory, what 
it has incurred is too deep a terror, to be conceivable except 
of a being on a grand scale. He is no worm for whom the 
eternal abysses are built as a dungeon and the lightnings are 
brandished as a scourge. Accordingly, the very alienations 
of intolerance itself have acquired a higher and more respect- 
27 * 


318 


THE ETHICS OF CHRISTENDOM. 


ful character than in ancient faiths. The sort of feeling with 
which the Jew spurned “the Gentile dog” is sanctioned by 
piety no more. The Oriental curl of the lip is scarcely trace¬ 
able on the features of Christendom; and is replaced by an 
expression of tragic sorrow and earnestness, where lights of 
admiring pity flash through the darkest clouds. 

It seems, then, that the essential sentiment of all Christian 
faith — the communion through conscience with God — carries 
with it, not only noble personal aspirations, but also, towards 
others, affections of singular generosity and depth; affections 
which demand for every man a position in which he may 
work out the moral problem of life, which dignify every lot 
where this is possible, and which soften even actual alienations 
with possible reverence and hope. The sphere of action 
which these feelings may shape for themselves, the particular 
enterprises they may undertake, the external pursuits they 
may assume, will necessarily depend on many foreign and 
accidental conditions. The work which it would fall to the 
hands of the same faithful man to do, if he lived on through 
the changes of the world, would greatly vary from age to age. 
The work which contemporary men, of equal and similar fidel¬ 
ity, will set themselves to accomplish, will vary with their 
several positions. The same act, or even habit, which is inno¬ 
cent (though possibly not innocuous) in one place, may assume 
quite an altered significance in another. It would be absurd, 
for instance, to set down the double marriages of patriarchal 
times in the same moral rank with modern cases of bigamy. 
And the doctrine of Plato’s Republic respecting marriage, 
startling as a comment on the manners of his age, by no 
means expresses the odious state of mind which would be im¬ 
plied in its substitution now for the sanctities of private life. 
The devotion to studious and peaceful acts which may usually 
be either blameless or laudable, may become a guilt like trea¬ 
son in an hour when the interests of public liberty claim every 
citizen for the council or the field. Indeed, the conduct in 
such contrasted instances is in no proper sense the same ; it 
has only an external identity; it is a physical self-repetition, 


THE ETHICS OF CHRISTENDOM. 


319 


with a moral contrariety ; and unless, in speaking of a human 
action , we mean to shut out the soul which makes it human, 
and to denote only the muscular flourish and spasm of limb, 
the sameness is but a semblance with a reality of difference. 
The moral values of actions, taken in this narrowest sense, are 
inevitably variable; and any code that should present a list 
of them as obligatory in perpetuity, without regard to the 
changes of their meaning to the mind, would mistake the 
very nature of human duty. Not that we deny the existence 
of permanent grounds for the adoption of some habits and 
the avoidance of others. There are reasons, unchangeable as 
the corporeal frame of man, why opium should not be taken 
as an article of food, and why cousins should not intermarry. 
But the grounds of prohibition in these cases are rational , not 
moral; they are found in the outward effects, not in the in¬ 
ward sources, of conduct; and only when its outward effects 
are known to the agent, so as to enter among its inward sources 
and modify its meaning, does he pass from unwise to im¬ 
moral. External action, in short, stands as an indifferent phe¬ 
nomenon, "between the mind that issues it and the world into 
which it goes. The thought a id affection whence it springs 
in the former give its moral , the results to which it tends in 
the latter its rational value. Whoever makes a correct esti¬ 
mate of the several affections and impulses which stir the 
will, and throughout their scale reveres the better and disap¬ 
proves the worse, possesses moral truth. Whoever perceives 
and computes the real consequences of voluntary conduct, 
possesses rational discernment in human affairs. The former 

— an interpretation of the conscience and its sacred contents 

— is the permanent essence of ethical and root of religious 
wisdom. The latter — an apprehension of physical laws and 
historical tendencies—is conditioned by the progress of sci¬ 
ence and the facilities for social vaticination. Errors in this 
are inevitable to the limitations of human intellect. Perfec¬ 
tion in that is possible only to the highest divine insight in the 
soul. The fallible judgment respecting outward relations 
affects only the accidents of morals, though the essence of 


320 


THE ETHICS OF CHRISTENDOM. 


scientific truth. Where the inner apprehension is deep and 
true, the outward judgment contains a principle of self-correc¬ 
tion ; the miscalculation of one age is checked by that of a 
succeeding; opposite errors cancel each other; and the spirit 
of a pure faith, like a just feeling of beauty and greatness in 
art, works itself clear of the false data of usage amid which 
its inspiration arose, and transmigrates into ever-improving 
forms. If, however, the reverence due to the inspiration 
should become a traditional affair, losing its living eye and 
spiritual tact, it will extend itself as a moping idolatry to the 
imperfect media and rude materials through which the new 
glory first gleamed; an incapable era of renaissance will 
appear; the very works which were given as the spring of 
ever-fresh creation will be used to stifle it; in servile imitation 
of an original period, its whole character will be lost, and the 
moment of exactest reproduction will be that of intensest 
contrast. 

This is precisely the way in which the spiritual life of the 
primitive Christians has been dealt with. The thought and 
meaning that lay at its heart are little apprehended; its ap¬ 
plied morals, in which these are mixed up with the errors in¬ 
cident to their point of view, are distorted into a rigid code of 
obligation, in which the original idea is often entirely reversed. 
If it be really true that the Apostolic age was impressed 
with the belief of a speedy end of the world, such an outlook 
must undeniably have affected the disciples’ whole estimate of 
the value of human pursuits. The plan of life commendable 
in a passage-ship may be questionable in a settled home; and 
the proceedings of an army on the eve of battle are not like 
the habits of the same people tilling their fields and sitting at 
their hearths. To apply to a permanently constituted planet 
the rules promulgated to preserve discipline amid a general 
breaking-up, is surely an eccentric kind of legislation. Yet 
by just such a process have modern churches derived a num¬ 
ber of ethical extravagances offensive to the eye of chastened 
conscience, and condemned by their impracticability to the in¬ 
sincere existence of perpetual talk. The manner in which 


THE ETHICS OF CHRISTENDOM. 


321 


English divines conduct themselves towards this error of the 
first century appears to us not simple and ingenuous. Some 
still aifect to deny it, and to treat its reiterated assertion as a 
mere perverseness and impudence of heresy; yet they leave 
the statement without serious refutation, though well aware 
that the weight of critical authority is altogether in its favor, 
and though avowing their own theory of revelation absolutely 
to require that it be false. Others incidentally and grudgingly 
admit it, and then pass on as if nothing had happened ; imme¬ 
diately relapsing into the same authoritative appeal to Scrip¬ 
ture, the same direct and mechanical use of its precepts, the 
same assumption of it as an instrument yielding on interpre¬ 
tation nothing but truth, which had been habitual with them 
before their eyes were opened. Now, if anything be certain 
on such a matter, it is that to suppose one’s self in the world’s 
last year, — the admission paid to the panorama of judgment 
and the spectacle only waiting to begin, — is no small and 
sleepy idea, which might ineffectually turn up now and then, 
and sink back below the surface without further trace. A 
man who could live in presence of such a vision, and not carry 
its crimsoned light upon every object that fixed his eye, could 
be no apostle of truth or preacher of earnestness; nor do we 
know that anything more contemptuous could be said of him 
than that, no doubt, he held such an expectation, but it was of 
no consequence. To convert the author of the Pauline Epis¬ 
tles into a dilettante believer of the pattern of the nineteenth 
century, and say of his most tremendous gleams of thought 
that they were but transitory fireworks which meant nothing, 
is no less an offence against his character than a misunder¬ 
standing of his writings; and we conceive that, in affirming 
the deep penetration of his mistaken world-view into the sub¬ 
stance of his monitory teaching, we shall be vindicating the 
fundamental veracity and noble clearness of his soul. 

To exhibit the Christology of the Apostles with the fulness 
necessary for tracing pseudo-Christian morality to its origin, 
would require a volume. We can only advert to one or two 
points, indicating the direction which such an inquiry would 


322 


THE ETHICS OF CHRISTENDOM. 


take. It is admitted on all hands, that a second advent of 
Christ is announced in almost every book of the New Testa¬ 
ment ; that, if we except the Gospel of John, it is spoken of 
invariably as a real, personal return, an objective and scenic 
event, to be seen, heard, and felt; and cannot be explained 
away into a spiritual access to the world, or a subjective 
drama in the soul of disciples. It is further admitted, that 
with this advent are integrally connected many incidents 
which, however difficult to group into a complete picture, con¬ 
stitute, under every variety of possible arrangement, a final 
consummation of human affairs. Indeed, the article in the 
Creed which declares that Christ “shall come to judge the 
quick and the dead, and at his coming all men shall rise again 
with their bodies and shall give account for their own works,” 
shows how the Church understands the doctrine, and conjoins 
the end of the world with the advent. The nature of the 
event being so far undisputed, the question which separates 
the mass of scientific interpreters from the popular expounder, 
refers only to its date. The Apostle Paul, it is urged by the 
critics, writes to his Thessalonian converts, in answer to a 
distressing doubt which could have no existence but in minds 
on the watch for the return of Christ; and his answer, far 
from checking this outlook, raised it to such intensity that, to 
soothe their excitement, he wrote to them again to remove the 
event from the immediate foreground of their imagination; 
yet even then detained it quite within the limits of their nat¬ 
ural lives, and, simply interposing one or two signals of its 
approach that had not yet appeared, counselled them not to 
lose their composure, but maintain a “patient waiting for 
Christ.” The original doubt which had disturbed them seems 
to have been one instructively characteristic of the early the¬ 
ocratic faith. Some member of the community had died ; his 
friends, in addition to their natural sorrow, were apparently 
taken by surprise, that, after enrolment among the citizens of 
the approaching kingdom, he was taken from their side, and 
would not be with them when they hailed the arrival of Christ. 
What would become of him ? They thought he would have 


THE ETHICS OF CHRISTENDOM. 


323 


to remain in liis sleep till Messiah should exercise his func¬ 
tion of raising the dead, which was not to be at first; and so, 
during the great crisis, and for an uncertain continuance be¬ 
yond, he would linger behind the privilege which they enjoyed. 
This seems, at first sight, a strange subject of distress. That 
the second advent should take place in the presence of the 
living only, and should leave the dead without part or lot in 
the matter, is so completely at variance with the picture which 
has become fixed in the common Christian imagination, that 
scruples may readily be felt about attributing so mutilated a 
conception to the Thessalonian church. The commonly re¬ 
ceived picture, however, is made up of elements incongruously 
brought together from several Scripture writers, to whom the 
expected event presented itself under different aspects; and 
nowhere can they be found combined into such a whole as the 
ecclesiastical faith represents. To understand and account for 
the Thessalonian state of mind, we have only to read over the 
24th and 25th chapters of St. Matthew, and to surrender our¬ 
selves to the images there presented, without adding anything 
of our own. These chapters contain the fullest description of 
the advent, the last judgment, and the end of the world, that 
can be found in Scripture ; yet the dead are not brought upon 
the scene at all , nor is any resurrection found among its ele¬ 
ments. The whole idea is evidently of a return of the Son 
of Man, within the limits of a generation, to take account, in 
his theocratic capacity, of the very persons who had known 
him in his Galilean humiliation and disguise, — of those who, 
having joined him in his days of trial, had been intrusted by 
him with the administration in the interval of his heavenly 
absence, — and of those who, after rejecting him personally, 
had hardened themselves no less against the preaching and 
overtures of his subsequent ambassadors. The nations gath¬ 
ered before him are furnished from the surviving population 
of the earth ; and the ground of their admittance or rejection 
is the reception they have given to Messiah in the persons of 
his missionaries and representatives. In supposing the dead 
to have lost their chance of participating in this scene, the 


324 


THE ETHICS OF CHRISTENDOM. 


Thessalonians did but paint it to themselves as Christ, accord¬ 
ing to the first Gospel, had described it to his hearers. Their 
misgiving plainly assumes that the advent was sure for the 
living and was lost for the dead. The Apostle answers by 
denying the distinction, and putting both classes into the same 
condition ere the great hour strikes: but what condition ? 
Does he say that the living will die first? No; but that the 
dead will live first: so that the departed companion will come 
back at the right moment for mingling with the troop of 
friends that shall go “ to meet the Lord in the air.” The 
same order of events is given in the sublime, but Jittle under¬ 
stood, chapter on the resurrection in the First Epistle to the 
Corinthians, where the Apostle places himself,\ at the advent, 
not among “ the dead ” that “ shall be raised incorruptible,” 
but among the survivors that “ shall be changed ” into immor¬ 
tals without ever quitting life. It is a topic of praise to the 
disciples at Corinth that they are “ waiting for the coming of 
our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall also confirm you unto the 
end, that ye may be blameless in the day of our Lord" Jesus 
Christ.” He assures his Philippian friends that “ the Lord is 
at hand,” and prays that they may “ be sincere and without 
offence till the day of Christ.” Having come out safe from 
his examination and hearing at Rome, he avows his persua¬ 
sion that he will be similarly delivered “from every evil 
work,” and preserved unto Christ’s heavenly kingdom. Though 
amid his toils and weariness he earnestly desired to be en¬ 
dowed with his immortal frame, — to be invested, as he ex¬ 
presses it, with his house from above; yet he was unwilling 
to put off the corruptible, till he could put on the incorruptible ; 
he would have his mortality swallowed up of life ”; he did 
not wish the great hour to find him naked, but clothed, not, 
that is, a disembodied spirit, but a living man. He stands at 
the era on which “ the end of the world has come ”; and begs 
his correspondents to let certain existing disputes lie over, and 
to “judge nothing before the time until the Lord come.” Not 
less explicit evidence is afforded in the writings of other Aposr 
ties. James says, “ The coming of the Lord draweth nigh;.... 


THE ETIIICS OF CHRISTENDOM. 


325 


behold, the Judge standeth before the door.” Peter, “The 
end of all things is at hand.” John, “ Children, it is the last 
time; and as ye have heard that Antichrist shall come, even 
now are there many Antichrists; whereby we know that it is 
the last time.” If the author of Christianity did not himself 
entertain the same expectation of an early return to assume 
his Messianic prerogatives, he has been greatly misrepresented 
by his biographers. For though one of them represents him 
as disclaiming a knowledge of the specific “ day and hour ” 
appointed for his “ coming in the clouds with great power and 
glory,” the disclaimer follows immediately on his announce¬ 
ment, that at all events it will take place within the existing 
generation. Does any reader doubt whether this “ coming in 
the clouds” really describes the judgment? or whether “this 
generation ” denotes the natural term of human life ? Both 
questions are answered at once in Matthew’s report of a single 
sentence, which simultaneously defines the event and its date: 
“ For the Son of Man shall come in the glory of his Father, 
with his angels ; and then he shall reward every man accord¬ 
ing to his works. Verily I say unto .you, there be some stand¬ 
ing here which shall not taste of death , till they see the Son of 
Man coming in his kingdom.” It is certainly possible enough 
that the discourses in which these expressions occur may be 
incorrectly reported, and have acquired from the writer’s state 
of mind a definiteness not belonging to the original production. 
But, at any rate, they reveal the historian’s conception of what 
was in Jesus’s thought; and the false coloring of expectation 
which they threw over his prophecies could not fail to extend 
in their reports to his preceptive discourses, and thus to have 
almost the same influence on the recorded Christian ethics, as 
if the error were his as well as theirs. 

The evidence on this point is so positive and overwhelming, 
that critics such as Olshausen, whose testimony is undoubtedly 
reluctant, no longer think of resisting it. Nothing, indeed, 
can be opposed to it but a kind of interpretation which is the 
opprobrium of English theology; and whose problem is, not 
simply to gather an author’s thought from his words, but from 
23 


326 


THE ETIIICS OF CHRISTENDOM. 


amonjf all true thoughts to find the one that will sit the least 
uneasily under his words. Thus “ the end of all things ” is 
explained away into the founding of the Christian Church; 
the “ coming of the Son of Man on the clouds of heaven,” in¬ 
to the Jewish war under Titus; the last judgment, which 
“ rewards every man according to his works,” into the escape 
of the Christians and the slaughter of the Jewish zealots at 
the destruction of Jerusalem. No doubt, many good and well- 
instructed men have persuaded themselves that by such ex- 
egetical sleight of hand they could save Apostolic and other 
infallibility. We can only say, that when piety supplies the 
motive, and learning the means, for bewildering veracity of 
apprehension, two rich and noble endowments are spent in 
corrupting a nobler, which is the life of them both. 

To the moral sentiments which should occupy the soul, it 
may make little difference how long the world is to last. But 
to the course of action which should engage the hand, it is a 
matter of primary moment. All human occupations rest on 
the assumption of permanence in the constitution of things; 
nor is it less true of a planet than of a farm, that mere ten¬ 
ants at will, unsecured by lease and even served already with 
notice to quit, will undertake no improvements, and will suffer 
the culture to decline to the lowest point. What profession 
could remain respectable if society had no future? What 
interest would attach to the administration of law, on behalf 
of property which was not worth six months’ purchase, and 
life which, stripped of survivorship, had lost all sacredness to 
the affections ? Who would sit down to study the Pharmaco¬ 
poeia on board a sinking ship ? What zeal could be felt by 
the statesman or general in repelling from his country an in¬ 
jury that could never be repeated, or removing a grievance on 
the point of supernatural death ? The fields would scarce be 
tilled which the angels with flaming sword might come to reap ; 
or the vineyards be dressed in sight of him “ who treadeth the 
wine-press alone.” All the crafts of industry, all the adven¬ 
tures of commerce, are held together by a given element of 
time; and, when deprived of this, fall away into inanity. No 


TIIE ETHICS OF CHRISTENDOM. 


327 


one would build a house on ice melting with hidden fires; or 
freight ships over an ocean which earthquakes were to drain 
away; or fabricate silks and patent-leather for appearance at 
the last tribunal. And the loosened hold of these pursuits 
upon human zeal, so far from implying their exchange for 
anything higher and more spiritual, involves the direct reverse. 
They cannot be abandoned; the stern punctuality of hunger, 
the peremptoriness of instinctive or habitual want, compel 
their continuance; and Paul himself made sail-cloth for a 
world on its last voyage. But they are kept up only because 
there is no help for it; they sink into mere bread-trades ; and 
are thrown back many stages from the tranquil human towards 
the grim cannibal level. All work in this world, no doubt, 
rests at bottom on the elementary animal requirements of our 
nature; but it is then most worthily performed, not when these 
requirements are most obtrusive, but when they are most 
withdrawn. It is the specific moral benefit which social or¬ 
ganization confers upon man, that it enables him to retreat 
from the constant presence of sheer necessity, and stand at a 
sufficient distance from it to allow other and higher feelings 
to connect themselves with his industry. It is a lower thing 
to consult for the natural wants of primitive appetite, than for 
the artificial love of order, neatness, security, and beauty; and 
a craftsman works in a better spirit when earning some un¬ 
necessary gift for his wife or child, than when toiling for the 
bitter loaf that staves off starvation. An art prosecuted with¬ 
out pride in its ingenuity, without intellectual enlistment in its 
methods of skill, is degraded from an instrument of discipline 
into a prowling for food, — from a mode of life into a make¬ 
shift against death. To take away the future, therefore, from 
secular pursuits, is simply to draw off from them whatever 
redeems them from meanness ; to plant them in greedy isola¬ 
tion, as mere personal necessities; and cut them off from the 
great human system which lends to them a color of nobleness 
and dignity. Among the early Christians this tendency was 
greatly checked by the fresh aims and employments which 
their religion created; and in devotion to which the more en- 


328 


THE ETHICS OF CHRISTENDOM. 


thusiastic spirits found ample scope for their affections. The 
Church, subsisting like an intrenched camp in a hostile land, 
had to make sallies in all directions for rescue of the wander¬ 
ing, and for captives to the faith. An aggressive activity of 
compassion and conviction found tasks for the energies disen¬ 
gaged from secular pursuits; and the new relations into which 
their religious profession threw them towards the synagogue, 
the magistrate, the Pagan worshipper, supplied them witli 
continual problems of conscience, severe, but wholesome to the 
mind. So peculiar, indeed, was their position, that, even if 
they had reckoned on a continuance of human affairs, they 
could hardly, perhaps, have mingled much with a world that 
drew them with such slender sympathies. Separated in ideas 
and affections, they must in any case have created a new and 
detached centre of social life. Still it is undeniable that their 
isolation was favored and exaggerated by their faith in an ap¬ 
proaching end of all things ; and that they withdrew from 
human interests, not simply because honorable contact with 
them was impossible, but because they were taught entire in¬ 
difference to them as elements of a perishing system. Not 
only is no recognition given to the pursuit of art and letters, 
and the citizen’s duty presented only on the passive side; but 
even the relations of domestic life are discouraged, and the 
slave is dissuaded from care about his liberty, on the express 
ground that it is not worth while, on the brink of a great ca¬ 
tastrophe, to assume any new position, or commit the heart by 
new ties. The time is too short, the crisis too near, for the 
career of a free life, or the building of a human home. It is 
better for every one to continue as he is; and instead of wait¬ 
ing to have the world perish from him, to regard himself as 
already dead to the world. To stand impassive and alone, 
neutral to joy or sorrow, with soul intent on the future, and 
disengaged from impediments of the past, earnest to keep 
bright on its watch-tower the beacon of faith, but resolute to 
descend no more into the plain below, appeared to the Apostle 
Paul the highest wisdom. And how could it be otherwise ? 
Seen from his point of view, all temporal claims sank into 


THE ETHICS OP CHRISTENDOM. 


329 


negation. The constitutions, the arts, the culture, of civilized 
nations were about to be superseded; and the Christians who 
had already retired from them needed no new ones to take 
their place, except such provisional arrangements as might 
serve during the world’s brief respite. Equally natural and 
suitable to their conceived position were the non-resistance 
principles of the early disciples. What right could be worth 
contending for on the dawn of a great day of redress, when 
every wrong would be brought to its account ? Who would 
carry a cause before Dikast or Proconsul to day, when Eter¬ 
nal Justice was pledged to hear it to-morrow ? Who refuse 
to resign to human coercion what a retributive Omnipotence 
would soon restore ? When the great assizes of the universe 
are about to be opened, it were a poor thing for the suitors to 
begin fighting in the vestibule. In all these respects the prac¬ 
tical code of the Apostolic age was inevitably influenced by 
the mistaken world-view prevalent in the Church. For the 
plaintiff, the hour was fixed when his suit would be called; for 
the slave, the emancipation-day was declared; and from him 
that bound himself in heart to the past, the past was about to 
be snatched away. The rules of action dictated by these no¬ 
tions are mere accidents of the first age, — correct deductions 
from a misconceived system of external relations. They are 
wholly dependent on this misconception, and have no neces¬ 
sary connection with the interior spirit, the characteristic sen¬ 
timents and affections which distinguish Christianity as a re¬ 
ligion. If the Apostles had lived on till their mistake had 
worn itself out, and they had discovered the permanence of the 
world, — had they postponed all writing of Scripture till this 
lesson of experience had been learned, — we apprehend that 
their scheme of applied morals would have been very differ¬ 
ent ; a more genial recognition would have been given to nat¬ 
ural human relations ; the social facts of property and govern¬ 
ment, the private concerns of education and self-culture, the 
personal responsibilities of genius and intellect, would have 
been less slightingly dismissed, and reduced to clear moral 
order; and the sentences would have been greatly modified 
28 * 


330 


THE ETHICS OF CHRISTENDOM. 


which now support the delusions of the improvident, the ascet¬ 
ic, the exclusive, and the non-resisting. Unhappily, Apostles 
do not live for ever, so that we are denied that chance; and 
successors of Apostles, though seldom scarce, are not a helpful 
race, being chiefly marks of an absent inspiration. The task, 
therefore, of applying the essential Christian sentiments to a 
permanent world, — though avowedly undertaken by the Ro¬ 
man Catholic Church, — remains unperformed; and instead of 
it we have, in the common Protestantism, a violent misappli¬ 
cation to human nature and all time of the accidents and er¬ 
rors of the first age, resulting, we fear, in a caricature injuri¬ 
ous alike to that first age itself, and to all true apprehension of 
the nature and proportions of human duty. 

Expressions abound in the literature of modern Christen¬ 
dom implying an antithesis between temporal and spiritual 
things, between morality and religion, between the world and 
God. No one can fail to observe that this antithesis, whether 
founded in reality or not, has become a social fact. There are 
two standards of judgment extant for the estimate of charac¬ 
ter and life; one set up in the pulpit, the other recognized in 
the forum and the street. The former gives the order in 
which we pretend, and perhaps ineffectually try, to admire 
men and things ; the latter, that in which we do admire them. 
Under the influence of the one, the merchant or the country 
gentleman is professedly in love with the innocent improvi¬ 
dence of the ravens and the lilies; relapsing into the other, 
be sells all his cotton in expectation of a fall, or drains his 
farms for a rise of rent. On the Sunda 3 r , he applauds it as a 
saintly thing to present the patient cheek to the smiter; on 
the Monday, he listens with rapture to Kossuth’s curse upon 
the house of Ilapsburg, and the Magyar vow of resistance 
to the death. He assents when the Apostle John is held up 
to his veneration as the beloved disciple, but, if the truth were 
known, the Duke of Wellington is rather more to his mind. 
Supposing it all true that is said about the vanity of earthly 
pleasures and ostentations, he nevertheless lets his daughters 
send out next day invitations to a grand ball, and makes his 


THE ETHICS OF CHRISTENDOM. 


331 


house busy with dress-makers and cooks. He is accustomed 
to confess that in him there is no good thing, and that all his 
thoughts and works are only evil continually ; yet he is pleased 
with himself that he has provided for the family of his gar¬ 
dener who was killed on the railway last week. In these and 
a thousand other forms may be noticed the competition be¬ 
tween two coexisting and unreconciled standards, the relations 
between which are altogether confused and uneasy. Whoever 
is interested in following up the genealogy of ideas, and would 
search for the origin of this mixed and mischievous state of 
mind, must look first to the influence of Luther, and thence to 
the Pauline doctrine, which he improperly generalized and 
exaggerated. We will endeavor to trace the development of 
the sentiment in the opposite direction, from the ancient germ 
to the modern fruit. 

Paul the Apostle proclaimed Faith to be the condition of 
regeneration and acceptance. * To appreciate this message of 
his, we must remember two things; — namely, (1.) what it 
was from which men were to be rescued on these terms; (2.) 
what other conditions had been elsewhere insisted on instead 
of this, and were put aside by Paul in favor of this. Now 
enough has been said to show that what he feared for the 
world which he labored to convert was, primarily, exclusion 
from the theocratic empire which Messiah would return to 
erect; nor is it clear what ulterior consequences, if any, he 
conceived this exclusion- to carry with it. This banishment 
was the negative of that “ salvation ” to which the disciples 
were called; and which consisted in their registration as qual¬ 
ified citizens of the kingdom for which the earth was about to 
be claimed. The picture before his mind was so far altogether 
Jewish; not at all the modern idea of heaven and hell, — 
spiritual regions to which individuals, one by one, pass after 
death for moral retribution; but a terrestrial scene, the wind¬ 
ing up of history, affecting men in masses, and completing 
the purpose for which God had created this world. While, 
however, the thought of the Apostle’s mind was national, the 
compass of his heart was human; and as the hour drew nigh, 


332 


THE ETHICS OF CHRISTENDOM. 


he felt that the future could not be closed upon the great Gen¬ 
tile world; that his own people were not so sublime a race as 
to have the issues of Providence all to themselves; that he 
must get rid of their conceited pedigrees, and let the Divine 
plan, which for a while had narrowed its original universality 
within the current of Hebrew history, flow out at its end into 
the full breadth of its first scope. But if so, a new qualifica¬ 
tion must be found ; one open alike to Hebrew and to alien, 
yet nursing the pride of neither. These requisites are ful¬ 
filled in simple Faith, which, as a catholic possibility of every 
human heart, Paul substitutes for prescriptive rights and un¬ 
tenable merits. It was the only condition which there was 
time to realize. To insist instead on a mere moral fitness, on 
a character of mind suitable to meet the eye of infinite purity, 
would be a mockery in a state of society at once decrepit and 
corrupt. The hour pressed : it was not the case of a young 
and fresh generation, that might be brought back, by heedful 
training, to the sanctities of nature and conscience; but an 
old and callous world, that could do little for itself, had to be 
got ready in hot haste. A kindled enthusiasm, a new alle¬ 
giance, a resurrection of sleeping reverences, is the only hope. 
Once fix the gaze of faith, the simplicity of trust, on the Di¬ 
vine Human Being, who, having been clad in the sorrows of 
this earth, waits to bring in its everlasting peace; and this 
affection alone, comprehending in it every lesser purity, will 
soften even arid natures, and enrich them with forgotten fer¬ 
tility and grace. Preach your moral gymnastics to a school 
of young heroes, whose soul is noble and whose limbs are 
free ; but at the baths of Baioe, amid paralytics that drag the 
foot, and cripples with worn-out bodies and halting wills, if you 
cannot touch the spring of faith, you may spare your pedantic 
rules of exercise. Thus the Apostle’s demand of faith was a 
generous stimulant of hope and recovery to an invalided 
world, whose natural forces were broken, and which had but 
little time for restoration. It was a provision for pouring a 
mountain-breath of healing reverence upon the sickly souls 
and languid levels of this world. It was an attempt to meet 


THE ETHICS OF CHRISTENDOM. 


333 


a quick emergency, and, by an intense action, condense the 
powers of preparation. It was therefore an expression, not of 
the narrowness, but*of the universality of the Gospel. It 
shows the great heart of the religion bursting bounds, and the 
strong hand of its noblest servant tugging at the gates to get 
them open, grinding off the rust of tradition and crushing the 
scrupulous gravel of obstruction. 

The doctrine, however, assumes quite a different significance 
when snatched by Luther out of its historical connection, and 
held valid as a sufficient theory of human nature, and its only 
possibility of religion. The palsy of will, the incapacity of 
self-cure, the hopeless moral prostration into which long cor¬ 
ruption had brought the world, as it lay beneath the eye of 
Paul, Luther assumes as the normal condition of the soul, and 
treats as a congenital incompetency of faculty, instead of a 
contracted depravity of state. Not that he disowns the hu¬ 
man will as an executive power, or denies it a sphere of oper¬ 
ation. It can go forth variously into action,— can do what, 
in the view of mankind, is better or worse, — can commit a 
murder or can rescue from it; but in these outward doings, 
however differently they affect men, there is no real good or 
evil; in the supreme view they are neutral automatic exhi¬ 
bitions, simply physical as a flash of lightning or a fall of rain; 
their real character all lies in the inner spiritual springs from 
which they issue in the soul: on these alone is the infinite 
gaze fixed; and these are turbid all through, and all alike, 
with the taint and poison of a ruined nature. As all natural 
actions derive an equal guilt from the impurity of their source, 
so, when the source is purified, is the guilt equally removed 
from all; whilst nothing which the unconverted may do can 
please God, nothing that is performed in faith can come amiss 
to him. Be it what men call crime or what they praise as 
virtue, it makes no difference if only it be done in faith. 
Furnished with this supernatural charm, the believer may 
pass through any mire and come out clean. 

“ A Christian cannot, if he will, lose his salvation by any 
multitude or magnitude of sins, unless he ceases to believe. 


334 THE ETHICS OF CHRISTENDOM. 

i 

For no sins can damn him, but unbelief alone. Everything 
else, provided his faith returns or stands fast in the Divine 
promise given in baptism, is absorbed in a moment by that 
faith.”* 

Here is a conception of faith altogether distinct from Paul’s. 
It is here no act of reverential enthusiasm and affection, no 
kindred movement of the soul towards an object beautiful and 
holy, but a mere willingness to trust a verbal assurance of 
atonement, — a willingness, moreover, itself foreign to the 
mind, and superinduced as an unnatural state by special gift. 
Nor is its efficacy to be sought in its transforming power on 
man, but in its persuasiveness with God. It does not ennoble 
anything that is the worshipper’s own, but simply hangs on to 
it externally the compensating sanctity of another; it is, in¬ 
deed, described by Luther as the mere vessel put into the 
hands of the believer, and charged with the treasures of 
Christ’s obedience, — treasures so acceptable that they charm 
away the foulness, and prevent the rejection, of anything that 
accompanies them. Thus the effect of faith on the disciple is 
not to inspire him with a God-like mind, but to prevent his 
corruptions being any damage to him. By this strange theory, 
both sin and sanctity are made entirely impersonal to man; 
sin, by being a transmitted inability; sanctity, by being a for¬ 
eign donation ; and his individual character sits in the midst, 
at a point of spiritual indifference, neither chargeable with 
the dark hue native to its complexion, nor etherealized by the 
veil of borrowed light which it wears as a robe. No room is 
found, either in the child of Adam, or in the redeemed of 
Christ, for any responsibility, any personal guilt or goodness 
whatsoever. The misery and deformity in which the Gospel 
finds him is un-moral, — the mere scrofula of inheritance; 
the redemption into which it lifts him is un-moral, — the mere 
usufruct of an alien purity: and thus the whole business of 

* Luther de Captivitate, Bab. ii. 264. Comp. Dispu. i. 523. Si in fide 
fieri posset adulterium, peccatum non esset. Other and yet more revolting 
assertions of the same principle are cited by Mbhle, in his Symbolik, I. iiL 
$ 16, whence these passages are taken. 




THE ETHICS OF CHRISTENDOM* 335 

religion begins and ends without approaching, and without im¬ 
proving, any law of conscience at all; morality remains abso¬ 
lutely cut off from its contact, unaffected by it except in being 
disowned and degraded, and losing the prestige of a Divine 
authority. This consequence of his doctrine is not in the 
least disguised by Luther, whose impetuous audacity never 
tires of forging phrases of opposite stamp, by which lie may 
put the brand of insult upon Morals, and burn characters of 
glory into the brow of Religion. The latter, he again and 
again insists, is to be set in the heavenly realm; the former, 
on the other hand, detained upon the ground; the two being 
kept as absolutely apart as the sky from the earth, regarded 
as not less incapable of a common function than light and 
darkness, day and night. Do we speak of faith and our rela¬ 
tions to God ? then we have nothing to do with morals, and 
must leave them behind lying on the earth. Do we speak of 
conduct and our relations with men? then we stop upon the 
ground, and get no nearer to heaven and its lights. The pro¬ 
tests of our better nature against our own shortcomings, the 
sadness of repentance, and the alarms of guilt, so far from 
being confirmed by true religion, are shown to be mere delu¬ 
sion and idle self-torture; and the conscience that can feel 
such compunctions is a stupid ass struggling in the dust and 
flats of this world beneath a servile burden it need never bear. 
To trouble the heart with any moral anxieties or aspirations is 
the most fatal act of unbelief, — a downright plunge from 
heaven over the precipice of hell. The moral law may rule 
the body and its members, but has no right to any allegiance 
from the soul.* In any personal and historical estimate of 
Luther there would be much to say in palliation of these 
monstrous positions; it would be easy to show their connec¬ 
tion with some of the noblest characteristics of his genius, and 
their antagonism to some of the worst features of his times. 
But regarded in their influence on Christendom, when de¬ 
tached from their living origin, and made the ground of a 
theory for the governance of life, they can only be lamented 


* See Luther’s Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians, passim. 



336 


TIIE ETHICS OF CHRISTENDOM. 


as an explosion of mischievous extravagance. For in what 
light do they present Morality to us, after stripping it of all 
sacredness ? What ground is left on which its obligation may 
repose, and what end is given for its aim? It exists, as 
Luther himself declares, only as a provision for social order 
and external peace. It is not concerned with the perfection of 
the individual, but with the organization of the world; and is 
nothing but the system of rules and customs requisite for the 
safe coexistence of many persons on the same field. It is 
thus reduced from an inspiration of conscience to an affair of 
police; the private sentiment of duty, operating in the hidden 
recess of life, keeping vigils over the temper of the mind and 
habits of the home, is a mere substitute for public opinion, and 
no representative of the eye of God. In this way, moral 
usages are first voted into existence as matters of convenience, 
and imposed by the general voice, yielding as their product in 
the individual an artificial sense of obligation ; and it is a de¬ 
lusion to invert this order, and say that the natural sense of 
obligation, inherent in each individual, creates by sympathy 
and concurrence the moral usages of mankind. This extreme 
secularization of morals places Luther in curious company 
with Hobbes; and the followers of both have not been alto¬ 
gether unfaithful to the original affinity of their ethical ideas. 
Both schools have withheld from their conception of morality 
any touch and color of religion ; both have been jealous of its 
mingling itself much with sentiment and feeling; both have 
applied to it purely objective criteria, and regarded it as a 
statutory affair, susceptible of codification, and then needing 
only a logical interpreter. This singular alliance between 
sects regarding each other with the greatest antipathy, exhib¬ 
its the irresistible tendency of a wdiolly super -natural religion 
to produce an fw/ra-natural morality. 

The result of this sharp separation of the ethical from the 
spiritual province of life is, that both are deprived of elements 
indispensable to their proper culture. Our devout people are 
not remarkable for either clear notions or nice feelings on 
moral questions; while the conscientious class are apt to be 


THE ETHICS OF CHRISTENDOM. 


337 


dry and cold precisians, truthful, trustworthy, and humane, but 
so little genial, so devoid of ideality and depth, that poet or 
prophet is struck dumb before their face. Till the two classes 
had discovered their mutual alienation and collected them¬ 
selves round distinct standards, — evangelical and worldly, — 
the evil was inconspicuous. For some time after the Refor¬ 
mation, both coexisted, without articulate repulsion, in every 
church, and each silently qualified the other extreme. Be¬ 
sides, in spite of Lutheran or other dogma, deep personal 
faith, grateful trust in such a one as Christ, could not be 
awakened in a people into whom God, whatever they might 
say of themselves, had actually put a conscience, without 
carrying the moralities with it. It might take the liberty of 
calling them “ stupid ass,” but would nevertheless object to 
have the ass abused. In truth, no sooner was the law of 
Duty driven from Christianity, than the claim of Honor was 
invoked to take its place; and the believer was exhorted not 
to take unworthy advantage of his redemption from legal lia¬ 
bility, but to render in thank-offering the service exacted by 
penalty no more; worthless as it was, it was all he had to 
give. Such appeal touches a spring powerful in noble hearts, 
and is, in fact, only the awakening of a higher order of moral 
feelings than before, — a fetching back, under the disguise of 
transfiguration, of that very sense of duty which had been 
professedly expelled. In the first enthusiasm of faith, while 
men’s souls, having just flung off the sacerdotal incubus of 
centuries, were burning to breathe freely, and felt the healthy 
throb of a new joy, this appeal would meet a full response. 
The doctrine of faith was but the appointed way of bursting 
through the miserable scrupulosities, the life of petty debts 
and casuistic book-keeping, by which a priesthood had main¬ 
tained a balance against the world, — of seizing a Divine 
indemnity and recovering the wholesome existence of devout 
instinct. If the inspiration of the sixteenth century could be 
permanently maintained, if all men were equally susceptible 
of being snatched up by a whirlwind of heavenward affection, 
if the surprise at finding that the soul had wings of its own 
29 


338 


THE ETHICS OF CHRISTENDOM. 


could last for ever, the principle of gratitude and pious honor 
might answer every end, and human duty be all the better 
done by taking no security for it; for you may hurl as a mis¬ 
sile, in hot blood, a weight which otherwise you will scarce 
drag upon the ground. But the fire of an age of Reforma¬ 
tion cannot be permanent; nor is gratitude an affection on 
whose tension life can be securely built;—you cannot edu¬ 
cate people by the force of perpetual surprise. There is a 
large natural order of minds, little susceptible of a self-aban¬ 
doning fervor, for whom you vainly bring the chariot of fire 
and horses of fire by which prophets fly to heaven, and who 
are content with-the humble mantle of the humanities thrown 
aside by more daring spirits in their ascent. Quiet, reflective, 
self-balanced persons are not to be taken by storm, and brought 
to betray the solid citadel of this world, and say ugly things 
of the moralities with which they have lived in friendly neigh¬ 
borhood. They are capable of being led, by reverence for 
what is better , but not of being kindled by the rays of what is 
intenser. If they are ever to be lifted into a life beyond con¬ 
science, where reluctance and resistance are felt no more, and 
the instincts of affection may flow of their own pure will, it 
must be by beginning at the other end, — by the religious dis¬ 
cipline of conscience , by pious consecration of this earth and 
its instant work, by faithful and frugal care of the smaller 
elements of duty, as of the sacred crumbs of eucharistic 
bread, not without a Real Presence in them. This class, 
■whose religion, by a decree of their nature, can only exist un¬ 
der ethical conditions, are wholly unprovided for in the Prot¬ 
estant system. In the Lutheran view they belong to the 
school of worldly unbelief; and though their number, as must 
be the case in quiet times, has been increasing for a century 
and a half, and constitutes the vast majority of educated peo¬ 
ple in this country, they are without any recognized religion; 
either veraciously disbelieving and waiting for something no¬ 
bly credible, or uneasily subsisting, suspected by clergymen, 
in the midst of churches whose theory of life has ceased to be 
a reality to them. With a faith traditionally shy of morals, 


THE ETHICS OF CHRISTENDOM. 


339 


and morals not yet elevated into faith, we have two separate 
codes of life standing in presence of each other, — one relig¬ 
ious, the other secular, — and neither of them with any true 
foundation in human nature as a whole; the secular, an acci¬ 
dental congeries of mixed customs and inherited opinions ; 
the religious, the product of an arbitrary spiritualism, lax and 
ascetic by turns. 

It is the peculiarity of modern Christianity that these two 
codes coexist within the same social body, and even rule over 
different parts of each individual. The Pauline antithesis 
between the world and the Church was not less sharp than 
ours; but it was a distinction of persons and classes, and no¬ 
body could occupy Tx)th the opposite ends of it. Once within 
a society of disciples, he was out of the world, and belonged 
to “ the assembly of the saints ” ; and the whole realm of hea¬ 
thendom beyond constituted the contrasted term. He did not 
stand and move with one leg on holy ground and the other on 
the common earth; whatever were the principles of the com¬ 
munity he had joined, they served him all through, and did no 
violence to the unity of Jiis nature. Praying or dining, weep¬ 
ing or laughing, in the workshop or the prison, he was the 
same man in the same sphere. As the circle of the Church 
enlarged, w r e should therefore expect the world to be driven 
to a distance, till it was absent from whole countries and con¬ 
tinents. But a new “ world ” has been discovered, not only 
within the Church, but within the person of every disciple; 
his body and limbs, his business and pleasures, being under 
the law of a morality quite secular; his soul and its eternal 
affairs sitting apart in a love quite spiritual. Who shall draw 
the line between the provinces, and know practically, hour by 
hour, where he stands ? Living confusedly in both, a man is 
apt to acquire a sort of double consciousness, and fluctuate 
distractedly between Caesar and God. He believes, perhaps, 
that the kingdoms of nature and of grace are destined always 
to remain side by side, neither absorbing the other till the day 
of doom. In that case, he will let other men create all the 
secular usages, the moralities of trade, the maxims of politics; 


340 


THE ETHICS OF CHRISTENDOM. 


standing aloof from them as not belonging to his realm, and 
falling in with them freely in his own case. They may be of 
questionable veracity and justice; but they belong to the 
Devil’s world, and are as good rules as can be expected from 
legislators sitting in the synagogue of Satan. Why should he 
decline to profit by them, now that they are there ? When 
Eve has plucked the apple, it is too late for Adam not to taste 
the fruit. The pious broker comes on ’Change as into a for¬ 
eign world, on which he is pushed by humiliating necessities, 
and in which he feels an interest derived from them alone: he 
has his citizenship elsewhere ; he disdains naturalization ; he 
is but a temporary settler; he wants no vote about the laws; 
but, taking them as they are, cuts his crop'and retires. The 
coolness with which people who live above the world some¬ 
times avail themselves of its lowest verge of usage is truly 
amazing. An affluent gentleman of high religious profession, 
subscriber to Gospel schools, believer in prevenient grace, and 
otherwise the pride of the Evangelical heart, found himself 
not insensible to the approaches of the Hudson mania, spec¬ 
ulated far beyond the resources of his fortune, declined to take 
up his bad bargains, and thus, at the expense of utter ruin to 
his agent, escaped with comparatively easy loss to himself. 
The agent, being but an honorable sinner of the worldly class, 
was struck down by the blow into great depression. His 
employer was enabled to take a more cheerful view, and, on 
meeting his poor victim, rallied him on his dejected looks and 
hopeless thoughts, so different from his own resigned and com¬ 
fortable state of mind : — “ But ah! I forgot,” he added with 
a sigh, “you are not blessed with my religious consolations !” 
Where no such positively odious results as these are produced, 
there is still often observable the negative selfishness of indif¬ 
ference to political welfare and political morals, — an affected 
withdrawal from temporal interests in the neighborhood or the 
State, and an insensibility to public injustice strangely dispro- 
portioned to the zeal displayed against innocent amusements 
and the nervousness on behalf of invisible subtilties of creed. 

The false opposition, however, between the world and the 


THE ETHICS OF CHRISTENDOM. 


341 


Church is not always thus passive and quiescent. It is not 
always recognized by those who hold it, as being a permanent 
fact to be merely sighed over and let alone. Many men are 
too earnest and truthful to settle down and pitch their tent 
upon a ground rocking with contradiction; to live two lives 
wholly unreconciled, one in the shame of nature, the other in 
the confidence of grace ; or to belong to two societies, — one 
political, the other spiritual, — conducted on principles at in¬ 
curable variance with each other. That a rule of action 
should be secularly good and religiously hateful, — that a sen¬ 
timent should be fitly applauded in Parliament and groaned 
over in the conventicle, — is to them an intolerable unreality, 
like the celebrated verdict of the University of Paris, that a 
doctrine might be true in philosophy and false in theology. 
In their hands, accordingly, the antithesis between the human 
and the divine is not a quiescent, but a conflicting dualism, in 
which their religious ideas become aggressive, and assume a 
commission to drive back and humble the world. They claim 
the earth for God, and think the surrender incomplete while 
anything natural remains; — while any instinct is uncrushed, 
any laughter unstifled, any genius, however pure, a law unto 
itself. The crusade against temporal interests and pursuits, 
consequent upon this state of mind, changes its form with the 
culture and habits of the age. In the early years of the Ref¬ 
ormation, when the whole Bible was spread open beneath the 
thirsting eye of an undistinguishing enthusiasm, the effect 
threatened at one time to be more terrible than glorious. The 
full thunder-cloud of the Hebrew prophets, stealing over a 
world in negative stagnation, waked the sleeping lightnings of 
the soul, and for a while streaked the atmosphere of history 
with fearful portents. Everything that had been written of 
the chosen people, their exodus, their law, their poetry, their 
passions, — everything except the relentings of their nature 
and the unsteadiness of their faith, — became consecrated 
alike. The military clang of their early history, the harp of 
their sweet singer, the choral pomp of their priestly rule, the 
mystic voices of their lonely men of God, — all were Divine 
29 * 


342 


THE ETHICS OF CHRISTENDOM. 


music alike, often more exciting than the Sermon on the 
Mount, and not less piercing than the anguish in Gethsemane. 
Such was the sequence and connection of the Divine dispen¬ 
sations supposed to be, that Christianity was simply the Jew¬ 
ish theocracy, only let loose out of Palestine to make a prom¬ 
ised land of the wdiole world. The downtrodden serfs of 
Franconia had not long heard the glad tidings from Witten¬ 
berg, ere they began to draw parallels between themselves 
and the old Israel when the desert had been passed. They 
had been brought to the brink of new hope, and looked, as 
across Jordan, to an inheritance verdant and tempting to their 
eye. The earth was the Lord’s, and the army of the saints 
was come to take it; the bannered princes, the ungodly 
priests, the “ men with spurs upon their heels,” all the carnal 
who peopled this Canaan and perched their “ eagle’s nests ” 
on every height, must be smitten and cleared off. The time 
of jubilee was come, when every believer should have his 
field of heritage; nay, the birds in the forest, the fish in the 
stream, the fruits of the ground, whatever has the sacred seal 
of God’s creative power, should be free to all, and the noble 
should eat the peasant’s bread or die. The lawyers should 
take their heathenish courts away, and men of God should 
sit and judge the people, according to the spirit and the word. 
The harvest was ripe, when the tares must be burned in the 
fire and the pure wheat be garnered for the Lord. These 
were the ideas which thousands of armed men, with a clouted 
shoe and a cart-wheel for their standards, and a leader who 
signed himself “ the sword of Gideon,” preached as their Gos¬ 
pel through the forests of Thuringia and beneath the citadel 
of Wurzburg. Nor was the ripest learning, much less the 
most generous spirit of the time, any security against the 
adoption of their doctrine. It was not Miinzer alone who 
breathed the fierce inspiration, exhorting his swarthy miners 
to “ lay Nimrod on the anvil, and let it ring bravely with their 
strokes ” ; but the honest Carlstadt, too, scholar, preacher, dia¬ 
lectician as he is, lays aside his broadcloth, and appears in 
white felt hat and rustic coat at the cross of Rothenburg, to 


THE ETHICS OF CHRISTENDOM. 


343 


preach encouragement to the people and bring fresh sorrow 
on himself. Throughout the great movement which in the 
third decade of the sixteenth century spread insurrection from 
the Breisgau to Saxony, the peasants were animated with the 
belief that the Gospel, armed with the sword of Joshua, was 
to subjugate the world, and that all the conditions of property, 
of law, of civil administration, under which secular communi¬ 
ties exist, were to be superseded by institutions conformed to 
a divine model. The leading Reformers, terrified by the re¬ 
ligious socialism which they had raised, were ready enough 
to denounce and crush it. But in truth their own idea differed 
from this insurgent faith more in form than in essence ; lodg¬ 
ing the power in different hands, and prescribing to it a differ¬ 
ent method, but assigning to it a similar trust for the same 
ultimate ends. The kingdoms of this world were to be made 
the kingdom of the Lord and of his Christ; and the temporal 
power was everywhere to assume a spiritual function, and 
make aggression on whatever opposed itself to the severity 
and sanctity of the Divine Word. The converts of Knox, the 
troopers of Cromwell, the town-councillors of Geneva, acting 
on this doctrine, claimed the whole of human life as their do¬ 
main, and pushed the inquisitions of police into private habits, 
and even the secret inclinations of personal belief. Playing- 
cards and song-books were denounced and seized, as if they 
came from the Devil’s printing-press; dancing prohibited, as 
a profane escape of the natural members into mirthful agita¬ 
tion ; concerts silenced, as enslaving immortal souls to the de¬ 
lusive sweetness of strings and wind; the caps of women 
and the coats of men shaped to evangelic type ; and, as if the 
world were a great school, the gates of cities, and even the 
doors of houses, were closed at temperate hours by vesper bell 
or signal gun. Asceticism grasped the sceptre and the sword, 
and demanded the capitulation of the world. How vain and 
dangerous, this tyrannous repression of nature is, the reaction 
during the seventeenth century into reckless and fatal license 
emphatically declares ; and the contrast shows the necessity of 
finding some mediating term, some reconciling wisdom, by 


344 


THE ETHICS OF CHRISTENDOM. 


which the antagonism may cease between the world and heav¬ 
en, between natural morals and Christian aspiration. Yet 
under a change of form the struggle is still continued; and 
with those who most prominently assume to represent the 
aims of Christianity, the present life, the temporal world, has 
no adequate recognition of its rights. They have no trust in 
human nature as divinely constituted, and as having no part 
or passion without some fitting range. They dare not leave 
it out of sight for an instant: they must draw up a dietary 
for it, of sufficing vegetables and water; they must w r atch its 
temper, and see that it behaves with winning sweetness to all 
rascality; they must guard its purse, and teach it that to live 
cheaply, spending nothing for ornament and beauty, nothing 
for honor and right, but only for subsistence and charity, is 
the great wisdom of man; they must stifle its indignations, 
lest it should cease to hold out its cheek to Russia, and, having 
gone one shameful mile with “the nephew of my uncle,” 
should refuse to go with him another. Both the ascetic doc¬ 
trine and the extreme peace principles of the present day, as 
well as its tendency to renounce all retributory punishment, 
betray, in our opinion, a morbidly scrupulous apprehension of 
evil, quite blinding to the healthy eye for good, — a crouch¬ 
ing of moral fear, singularly at variance with the free and 
noble bearing of the Apostle, who found that “ to the pure all 
things are pure.” As for the non-resistance principle, we 
have shown that it meant no more in the early Church than 
that the disciples were not to anticipate the hour, fast ap¬ 
proaching, of Messiah’s descent to claim his throne. But 
when that hour struck, there was to be no want of “ physical 
force,” no shrinking from retribution as either unjust or un¬ 
divine. The “flaming fire,” the “sudden destruction,” the 
“ mighty angels,” the “ tribulation and anguish,” were to form 
the retinue of Christ and the pioneers of the kingdom of God. 
It was not that coercion was deemed unholy, and regarded as 
the agency appropriate to lower natures and left behind in as¬ 
cending towards heaven; it was simply that natural coercion 
was not to fritter itself away, but leave the field open for the 


THE ETHICS OF CHRISTENDOM. 


345 


supernatural. The new reign was to come with force ; and 
on nothing else, in the last resort, was there any reliance ; only 
the army was to arrive from heaven before the earthly re¬ 
cruits were taken up. Nothing, indeed, can well be further 
from the sentiment of Scripture than the extreme horror of 
force, as a penal and disciplinary instrument, which is incul¬ 
cated in modern times. “ My kingdom,” said Jesus, “ is not of 
this world ; else would my servants fight ” ; — an expression 
which implies that no kingdom of this world can dispense 
with arms, and that he himself, were lie the head of a human 
polity, would not forbid the sword ; but while “ legions of an¬ 
gels ” stood ready for his word, and only waited till the Scrip¬ 
ture was fulfilled and the hour of darkness was passed, to obey 
the signal of heavenly invasion, the weapon of earthly temper 
might remain within the sheath. The infant Church, subsist¬ 
ing in the heart of a military empire, and expecting from on 
high a military rescue, was not itself to fight; not, however, 
because force was in all cases “ brutal ” and “ heathenish,” 
but because, in this case, it was to be angelic and celestial. It 
is evident that precepts given under the influence of these 
ideas can have no just application to the actual duties of citi¬ 
zens and states, whose problems of conduct, whose very ex¬ 
istence, they never contemplated; and that to urge them upon 
modern society as political canons is to introduce a doctrine 
which, under cover of their form, violently outrages their 
spirit. 

The mistaken antithesis between temporal and spiritual 
things runs into the greatest excess, wherever the inherent 
pravity of human nature is most exaggerated. There are 
churches, however, — the Catholic and the Arminian, — in 
whose doctrines the natural condition of man is painted in 
colors far removed from the deepest shade; and which deem 
him not so much incapable of right moral discernment, as 
weakened for faithful moral execution. In this view, the 
function of Christianity is not to supersede and cancel, but to 
supplement and guide, the native energies of the soul; not to 
raise it from a mad trance, in which all thought and feeling 


346 


THE ETHICS OF CHRISTENDOM. 


are themselves but a false glare, but to apply a tonic and heal- 
ing-~power, enabling it to do the right which it has already 
light enough to see. Professor Fitzgerald is an adherent to 
this doctrine, and justly contends that no lower estimate of 
human nature can consist with responsibility at all. 

“ I am not to be ranked,” he says, “ amongst those who as¬ 
sume that human corruption has not affected the natural power 
of the moral sense. I think it has. No doubt sinful deprav¬ 
ity, wherever it is indulged, is, as Aristotle long ago remarked, 
<p6apTiKfj 7-toz/ apx&v, — it tends to weaken or deprave the sen¬ 
timent of moral censure, and to blunt the perception of moral 
evil 

“ An eloquent but superficial French moralist has compared 
the conscience to a table-rock in the ocean, its surface, just 
above the ripple, bearing an inscription graven in the stone, 
which a genius, hovering over it, reads aloud. At times the 
waves arise and sweep over the tablet, concealing the mystic 
characters. Then the reader is compelled to pause. But 
after a while the wind is lulled, the waves sink back to their 
accustomed level, the inscription stands out clear and legible, 
and the genius resumes his interrupted task. 

“This comparison might gain something in correctness if 
we imagine the inscription traced upon a softer substance. 
For the stormy waves of passion not only conceal, while they 
prevail, the sacred characters of virtue, but, as billow after bil¬ 
low passes over the tablet, they tend to obliterate the lines. 

“ But in making these large concessions, (which I do very 
willingly,) I do not feel that I am surrendering the cause. It 
is one thing to say that the discriminating power of the moral 
judgment is affected and impaired by human corruption, and 
quite another to say that it is destroyed. It is one thing to say 
that it sometimes goes wrong, and another that we can never 
depend on its decisions. Most men’s experience has often 
hi ought them acquainted with persons who had impaired, in 
some way or other, their natural powers of perceiving truth 
or excellence in some respects, without losing either° sound 
principles of reason or sound principles of honesty in others. 


THE ETHICS OF CHRISTENDOM:. 


347 


And the way to correct such obliquities of intellectual or 
moral judgment is, not to tell men that they should distrust 
their natural faculties altogether, but to avail ourselves of so 
much as remains sound to discover the mistake or imperfec¬ 
tion which We seek to remedy or supply. The appeal, in such 
cases, is from the reason or conscience perverted or impaired, 
to the same faculties in what physicians would call their nor¬ 
mal state. When the effaced portions of the inscription are 
to be restored, the evidence of the correction results from its 
harmonizing with the p&rt which has not been obliterated; 
and an interpolation may be detected by its disturbing the co¬ 
herence of the context, — an omission by leaving it imperfect 
or unintelligible.” — p. 26 . 

On this principle alone, unhappily but little congenial with 
the spirit and traditions of Protestant churches, can Christian¬ 
ity coexist with natural ethics. Faith adopts morals, purifies 
and sublimes them, and especially changes the character of 
their force ; — for a law of compulsion from below, substitut¬ 
ing a love of God above. The enmity ceases between the 
world and heaven; the physical earth is not more certainly 
afloat in space, and on the muster-roll of stars, than the pres¬ 
ent life is plunged in eternity, and not behind its chiefest sanc¬ 
tities. There is nothing to be ashamed of, nothing to be 
slurred over as an unmanageable necessity, in the natural con¬ 
stitution and relations of men; whatever acts they prescribe, 
whatever combinations they require, are within the scope and 
consecration of religion. The whole compass of the world 
and its affairs, all the gifts and activities of men, are brought 
within moral jurisdiction, and included in the embrace of a 
genial reverence. No narrow interpretation is longer possi¬ 
ble of the province of human piety, and the true type of a 
noble goodness; as though they demanded a definite set of 
actions, rather than a certain style of soul, and denied a place 
to any affection or pursuit which can adorn and glorify exist¬ 
ence. Divine things are not put away into foreign realms of 
being, and future reaches of time, attainable by no path of 
toil, no spring of effort, only by miraculous transport; but are 


348 


THE ETHICS OF CHRISTENDOM. 


met with every day, shining through the substance of life and 
hid amid its hours. Whatever original endowments, what¬ 
ever acquired virtues, enrich and elevate our immediate sphere, 
— the Thought which finds its truth, the Genius that evolves 
its beauty, the Honor that guards its nobleness, the Love 
which lightens the burden of its sorrows, — are not mere tem¬ 
poral embellishments indifferent to its sacredness, but attri¬ 
butes that bring men nearer to the sympathy and similitude of 
God. Art, literature, politics, employing the highest human 
activities, and constituting the very blossom and fruit of all 
our culture, are recognized as having an earnest root, and not 
being the light growth of secular gayety and selfishness. We 
have no sympathy with the sentimental and immoral propen¬ 
sity, which corrupts the newest Continental philosophy, to 
recognize whatever comes into existence as ipso facto divine. 
But we do believe that the great change for which the secret 
religiousness of this age pines, and which it is sorely strait¬ 
ened till it can accomplish, is the deliberate adoption into 
“ heavenly places ” of this world, its faculties and affairs, just 
as God has made them, and man’s unfaithfulness has not yet 
spoiled them. The products of human baseness, hypocrisy, 
and ambition, — let them remain hateful, eternally contrary to 
God, things scarce safe to pity; but believe not that they 
have got this planet entirely to themselves, and have snatched 
it as their peculium quite out of the Supreme Hand. Men 
are tired of straining their thought along 4he diameter of the 
universe to seek for a Holy of Holies in whatever is opposite 
to their life; they find a worship possible, even irresistible, at 
home, and on the road-side a place as fit to kneel as on the 
pavement of the Milky Way. The old antagonism between 
the world that now is, and any other that has been or is to 
come, has been modified for them, or has even entirely ceased. 
The earth is no place of diabolic exile, which the “prince of 
the power of the air ” ever fans and darkens with his wing; 
and were it even, as was once believed, appointed to perish, 
this would be not because its failure was complete, but because 
its task was done. No ypngeance burns in the sunshine which 


THE ETHICS OF CHRISTENDOM. 


349 


mellows its fruits and paints its grass; no threatenings flash 
from the starry eyes that watch over it by night. It is not 
only the home of each man’s personal affections, but the native 
country of his very soul; where first he found in what a life 
lie lives, and to what heaven he tends; where he has met the 
touch of spirits higher than his own, and of Him that is high¬ 
est of all. It is the abode of every ennobling relation, the 
scene of every worthy toil; — the altar of his vows, the ob¬ 
servatory of his knowledge, the temple of his worship. What¬ 
ever succeeds to it will be its sequel, not its opposite, will re¬ 
sume the tale wherever silence overtakes it, and be blended 
into one life by sameness of persons and continuity of plan. 
He is set here to live, not as an alien, passing in disguise 
through an enemy’s camp, where no allegiance is due, and no 
worthy love is possible, but as a citizen fixed on an historic 
soil, pledged by honorable memories to nurse yet nobler hopes. 
Here is the spot, now is the time, for the most devoted service 
of God.* No strains of heaven will wake him into prayer, if 
the common music of humanity stirs him not. The saintly 
company of spirits will throng around him in vain, if he finds 
no angels of duty and affection in his children, neighbors, and 
friends. If no heavenly voices wander around him in the 
present, the future will be but the dumb change of the shadow^, 
on the dial. In short, higher stages of existence are not the 
refuge from this, but the complement to it; and it is the prop¬ 
er wisdom of the affections, not to escape the one in order to 
seek the other, but to flow forth in purifying copiousness on 
both. 

We have said that men are tired of having their earthly 
and their heavenly relations set up in sharp opposition to each 
other, and are eager to live here in a consecrated world. This 
tendency has already found expression in two remarkable and 
apparently dissimilar phenomena, — the partial success of the 
Anglican and Catholic reaction, and the vast influence on 
English society of the late Dr. Arnold’s character. Both 
were virtual protests against that removal of God out of the 
common human life, that unreconciled condition of Law and 
30 


350 


THE ETHICS OF CHRISTENDOM. 


Gospel, which had made the evangelical theology sickening 
and unreal. A path had to be opened for the re-introduction 
of a divine presence into the sphere of temporal things. New¬ 
man resorted to the supernatural channel of Church miracle ; 
Arnold to the natural course of human affairs, and the perma¬ 
nent sacredness of human obligation. Both restored to us a 
solemn mystery of immediate Incarnation; the one putting 
life, in order to its consecration, into contact with the sacra¬ 
ments ; the other spreading a sacramental veneration over the 
whole of life. Arnold, especially, saw the great moral evils 
which have arisen from the evangelical depreciation of the 
“ profane ” world. The secular, he was well aware, has be¬ 
come too secular, the spiritual too merely spiritual. Human 
nature is permitted to have play with unchecked wilfulness in 
the one, and is allowed no place at all in the other. The ob¬ 
ligations of natural law are held in light esteem, as if, in being 
social, they fell short of being sacred. The exercises of intel¬ 
lect, in the survey of nature or the interpretation of history, 
are often stigmatized as a mere earthly curiosity, permissible 
to reason, but neutral to the soul. The worst of it is, that 
these notions, once become habitual, fulfil their own predic¬ 
tions. As there is nothing which the heart cannot sanctify, so 
is there nothing which it may not secularize. Tell men that 
in their natural affections there is nothing holy, and their 
homes will soon be nests of common instinct. Assure them 
that in their business it is the unregenerate will, and the ani¬ 
mal necessity, that labor for the bread which perisheth, and 
soon enough will an irreverent greediness and a cankered 
anxiety usurp the place. Persuade them that to study the 
order of creation or the records of past ages is but a “ car¬ 
nal ” pursuit, and the student’s prayer for light will become a 
mere ambition for distinction, the meditations of wonder be 
stifled in the dust of mental day-labor, and the tears of admi¬ 
ration drop no more on the page of ancient wisdom. This 
was what Arnold could not abide; to see religion flying off 
on wings of pompous pretence to other worlds, and leaving 
no heavenly glory upon the earth, but letting her very fields 


THE ETHICS OF CHRISTENDOM. 


351 


be paved into a'street. There was no attempt to save a spot 
for any earnest reality, except the poor little enclosure behind 
the altar rail. The Church will consecrate a graveyard for 
the dead, but leaves the market of the living still unblessed: 
you may dissolve away in benediction, when your years are 
over of toil and sweat beneath the curse. To one who ac¬ 
knowledges a natural conscience and a natural element in 
faith, there is a religion in little in every part of life; it gives 
at least a note in the chords and melody of worship. Hence 
Arnold’s curious doctrine of the Church as covering all human 
relations whatsoever, and including the whole organism of the 
State. He would have nothing which the laws of this uni¬ 
verse imposed on the will of man done without a clear and 
pious recognition; it was not to be’ illicitly smuggled in, as if 
run ashore in a gale of confusion that could not be helped, but 
must be steadily accounted for and stored in open day. Ethi¬ 
cally, this doctrine, though, from its adaptation to a permanent 
world, it is the least Apostolic in appearance, is, of all inter¬ 
pretations of Christianity, the most true; and if it were not 
for clinging ideas of extra-moral dogma and special priesthood, 
as limiting the conception of “ the Church,” would go far to 
repeat for our age the work of Socrates for his, and bring 
down our divine philosophy from heaven to earth. It gets rid 
entirely of the false spiritualism which has either withheld re¬ 
ligious men from political affairs, or induced them to urge on 
statesmen rules applicable only where government can be dis¬ 
pensed with altogether. It rescues Christianity from the deg¬ 
radation of being hypocritically flattered as the great persua¬ 
sive to peace by rulers whom it does not restrain from going 
to war, and relieves it of an oppressive weight of false expec¬ 
tation, as though it broke its promise to the world every time 
a new case of strife appeared. Nothing can well be more 
damaging to a religion, than to commit it to unqualified disap¬ 
probation of anything which must exist while human nature 
lasts, and to set it frowning with ineffectual sublimity on the 
passions and events which determine the whole course of his¬ 
tory. The amiable enthusiasts who propose to conduct the 


352 


THE ETHICS OF CHRISTENDOM. 


affairs of nations on principles of brotherly love, and who, till 
that consummation is reached, can only stand by and protest, 
do but weaken their country for purposes of justice and bring 
their faith into merited commiseration. It is commonly said 
that they are a harmless class, who may even form a useful 
counterpoise to the warlike susceptibilities of less scrupulous 
men. We have no belief, however, in the efficacy of false¬ 
hood and exaggeration, or in the attainment of truth and mod¬ 
eration by the neutralizing action of opposite extravagances. 
The reverence for human life is carried to an immoral idolatry, 
when it is held more sacred than justice and right, and when 
the spectacle of blood becomes more horrible than the sight of 
desolating tyrannies and triumphant hypocrisies. Life, indeed, 
is just the one thing—the reserved capital, the rest, the 
ultimate security — on whose disposability in the last resort, 
and on the free control over which, the very existence of so¬ 
ciety depends. The first and highest social bond is no doubt 
to be found in a religious sentiment, a common veneration for 
the same things as right and intrinsically binding on men that 
live side by side; and the worship, with its institutions, of 
every community, is its instinctive attempt to get these things 
spontaneously done by the force of reverence. Could this 
point be really carried, nothing -would remain to be accom¬ 
plished ; religion would complete and perfect the incorporation 
of mutual loyalty which it had begun. But there are some 
in whom the sentiment of common reverence fails, and for 
whose fidelity to the moral ends of the social union there is 
therefore no natural guaranty. To reach these cases, society 
has no resource but coercive methods, actual or threatened; 
the threat is Law ; the actuality is Punishment; the power 
to which both are committed is a Government; the common¬ 
wealth on whose behalf they exist is a State. The very con¬ 
stitution of a state thus presupposes the possible violation of 
moral right , the partial failure of religion to secure its obser¬ 
vance, and the determination to enforce on the reluctant an 
obedience refused of free will. Force, however, is applicable 
only to men’s bodies ; it is a restraint and pressure on the 


THE ETHICS OF CHRISTENDOM. 


353 


functions of their life ; and if that life be sacred from infringe¬ 
ment, the political existence of nations is itself an offence 
against the law of God. All law, all polity, is a proclamation 
that justice is better than life, and, if need be, shall override 
it and all the possessions it includes; and nothing can be 
weaker or more suicidal than for men who are citizens of a 
commonwealth to announce, that, for their part, they mean to 
hold life in higher esteem than justice. Moreover, there is a 
low-minded egotism often disguised in this doctrine of passive 
meekness. As an inducement to quiet endurance of wrong, 
we are reminded of the duty of “ mutual forgiveness.” Is all 
the wickedness, then, that I am doomed to witness, nothing 
but a personal affront ? When a rascal threatens to blow out 
my neighbor’s brains, or to blast his character by infamous 
accusations, am /in a position to forbear and pardon ? Must 
I not own myself under a solemn trust, to see the right done 
and the guilty punished ? Nay, would not the injured man 
himself greatly mistake t]^e nature of the crime, and measure 
it by a paltry standard, if he took it for a mere private offence 
which it was his prerogative to punish or to overlook ? “ Who 
is this that forgiveth sins also ? ” The eternal laws of justice 
are not of our enacting; and no will of ours has title to sus¬ 
pend or to repeal them. The real and only demand of Chris¬ 
tian magnanimity is, that we visit them with no vengeance, 
but merely with moral retribution;—that is, with no more 
severity when directed against ourselves, than when we see 
them at an impersonal distance. But to regard and treat the 
guilty as if he were an innocent, — that is given to no man, 
and is even inconceivable of God. Rulers, at all events, as 
trustees of rights other than their own, — and each generation 
of a people, as charged with the interests of successors in per¬ 
petuity, — have but a limited privilege of forbearance; the 
meekness of the saint would in them be treason to the world. 
Even in international disputes, where each party may have a 
conviction of right, the controversy, but for the possibility of 
force, could have no end. It is a delusion to rely on courts as 
a substitute for armies, and to suppose that judicial decision 
30 * 


354 


THE ETHICS OF CHRISTENDOM. 


can supersede military. The judge would be of small avail 
without the constable; and the arbitrator between nations 
would need a European army to enforce his decrees. Where 
the stake is large and the feeling strong, it is notorious that 
the private disputant rarely acquiesces in an arbitration that 
goes against him; but carries his case to the last appeal, 
where it is stopped by a barrier of impassable force. You 
might as well pull down your jails in preparation for the as¬ 
sizes, as destroy your fleets and arsenals in quest of inter¬ 
national arbitration. We speak only of the ultimate theory 
of this matter, and simply affirm, that wherever law and gov¬ 
ernment exist, somewhere in the background force must lurk. 
It may, no doubt, be provided in excess, and paraded without 
need; and with the progress of a civilized order, the circle 
may be ever widened within which the idea of coercion, with 
the habits it creates, may be substituted for the obtrusive real¬ 
ity ; till possibly a family of nations may be gathered, like a 
group of counties, into a common jurisdiction. But this only 
shifts the camp without disbanding it; and, after all, the tip- 
staffs of your supreme court could be no other than the legions 
of a grand army. We have, therefore, no more doubt that a 
w r ar may be right, than that a policeman may be a security for 
justice, and we object to a fortress as little as to a handcuff. 
A religion which does not include the w r hole moral law; a 
moral law which does not embrace all the problems of a com¬ 
monwealth; a commonwealth which regards the life of man 
more than the equities of God,— appear to us unfaithful to 
their functions, and umvortliy interpreters of the divine scheme 
of the world. Quaker histories, written wuth omission of all 
the wars, are not less morbid as moral mistakes, than a doc¬ 
trine of Providence, leaving out the whole realm of heathen¬ 
dom, is narrow" as a religious theory; and the misuse of Scrip¬ 
ture which has led to both, is most dangerous to its authority 
in an age remarkable for the breadth of its historical survey 
and the variety of its ethnological sympathies. 

In other w r ays than those which we have indicated has a 
mischievous direction been given to modern thought and feel- 


THE ETHICS OF CHRISTENDOM. 


355 


ing, by perverting the accidental and transient form of the 
primitive Christianity into essential and permanent doctrine. 
But our exposition must proceed no further. The alternation 
of ascetic spiritualism and worldly laxity, the indifference to 
natural affections and relations, the exclusiveness at once de¬ 
vout and selfish, the jealous denial of their rights to intellect 
and art, the false apprehension of the true dignity of law and 
true life of states, have been the more earnestly dwelt upon 
from the conviction that these ethical infirmities are producing 
a perilous reaction, — a distrust of all ethical laws whatsoever, 
a disposition to hold everything divine that finds strength to 
realize itself, — a worship of what is, in place of an aspiration 
to what ought to he. To this we cannot consent. We cannot 
look on all forms of human life and character with the neutral 
eye of an equal admiration, as alike suitable products of for¬ 
mative nature. We cannot forego the right of judgment,— 
of embracing with reverence or spurning with abhorrence; or 
part with the ideal type of a perfect soul, to which all others 
rise as they approach. Neither do we believe with Luther, 
that human nature is a mere devilish anarchy, reducible only 
by supernatural irruption; nor with the newest school, that it 
is a divine anarchy, equally uncontrollable from within, and to 
be accepted as a wild fact; but that it is a hierarchy of pow¬ 
ers, each having and knowing its rightful place, and appeal¬ 
ing to us to maintain it there. To listen to that appeal, and, 
in answer to it, strive to harmonize the de facto with the de 
jure administration of the soul, destroying the usurpation of 
mean errors, and restoring the sway of kingly truth, is the 
aim of morals in action and in philosophy. 


THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 


The Restoration of Belief. No. I. Christianity in Relation 
to its Ancient and Modern Antagonists. Cambridge: Mac¬ 
millan & Co. 1852. 

We have heard it quoted as the remark of a distinguished 
foreigner, conversant with the choicest society in several of 
the capitals of Europe, that nowhere is the alienation of the 
higher and professional classes from all religious faith so wide¬ 
spread and complete as in England. That the masses at the 
other end of the social scale are indifferent or disaffected to 
the institutions which visibly embody the Christianity of our 
age, can be no secret to any observant inhabitant of a large 
English town. It is on the middle class alone that the vari¬ 
ous forms of Protestant worship have any real hold. Re¬ 
moved alike from the passionate temptations of the homeless 
artisan, and from the mental activity of the statesman or man 
of letters, the rural gentry and the urban tradespeople are 
detained under traditional influences, partly by the wholesome 
conservatism of moral habit, partly by helpless accommodation 
to conventional standards. Men of this class, if once really 
touched and possessed by earnest conviction, are the best de¬ 
fenders of a religion from political assault. But a faith ex¬ 
posed to an intellectual struggle finds among them but a pre¬ 
carious shelter; especially if their attachment to it is less 
a living persuasion than a fear of the blank which its removal 



THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 


357 


would create. Persecuted by the magistrate, they know how 
to defend their worship from the oppression of law. Assailed 
by the critic, they can offer but the resistance of a dumb 
impenetrability; they cannot bring their sterling personal 
qualities to bear upon the contest; they are obliged, for all 
active conduct in the strife, to trust to a body of literary 
Swiss, engaged to protect the Vatican of their faith, and accus¬ 
tomed never to report defeat. In proportion as the methods 
of sceptical aggression become more formidable, and its tem¬ 
per more earnest, it is found necessary to improve the training 
of the band of Church defenders ; — a measure at once in¬ 
dispensable and fatal; for it lifts them into an intellectual 
position, which spoils the blind singleness of their allegiance, 
discloses the hopelessness of the task expected from them, 
and often destroys their antipathy to the noble revolutionary 
foe. It is the vainest of hopes, that a body of clergy, brought 
up to the culture of the nineteenth century, can abide by the 
Christianity of the sixteenth or of the second; if they may 
not preserve its essence by translation into other forms of 
thought, they will abandon it, in proportion as they are clear¬ 
sighted and veracious, as a dialect grown obsolete. The 
number accordingly is constantly increasing, in every college 
capable of training a rich intellect, of candidates for the min¬ 
istry forced by their doubts into lay professions, and carrying 
thither the powerful influence, in the same direction, of learn¬ 
ing and accomplishment. The higher offices of education are, 
to no slight extent, in the hands of these deserters of the 
Church; and through the tutor in the family, or the master in 
the school, or the professor in the lecture-room, contact and 
sympathy are established between the best portions of the 
new generation, and a kind of thought and culture with which 
the authorized theology cannot co-exist. College friendships, 
foreign travel, current literature, familiarize all educated young 
men with the phenomenon of scepticism, and in a way most 
likely to disenchant it of its terrors. Thus by innumerable 
channels it enters the middle class at the intellectual end of 
their life, assuming in general the form of historic and criti- 


358 


THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 


cal doubt; while from below, from the classes born and bred 
amid the whirl of machinery, and shaped in their very imagi¬ 
nation by the tyranny of the power-loom, it pushes up in the 
ruder form of material fatalism. The intermediate enclosure, 
safe in the dull innocence of an unsuspected creed, is growing 
narrower every day; and, though reserved to the last for its 
hour of temptation, will be the least prepared to win its 
victory. 

No one who appreciates the real sources of a healthy 
national life, and knows what to expect from the dissolution 
of ancient faiths, can look without anxiety at a prospect like 
this; especially in a country whose religious institutions, rigid 
with usage, overloaded with interests, charged with the be¬ 
quests of the past, are manifestly unequal to the crisis, and, 
in their attempt to train the? affections of the Future, wield 
every power but the right one, and are indeed already regard¬ 
ed, like the Court of Chancery with its wards, as a dry nur¬ 
sery for grown babies. A people that reverences nothing — 
nothing at least that stretches a common heaven over all — 
has lost its natural unity. Incipient decay is spreading 
through the secret cement of its civilization, which, far from 
bearing the weight of further growth, precariously holds its 
existing mass together. So far we are entirely at one with 
those who see something to deplore in the u Eclipse of Faith,” 
and something to desire in the “ Restoration of Belief.” They 
do not overrate the evils of a state of society in which, if you 
think with the wise, you must cease to believe with the vul¬ 
gar. We would join with them, heart and hand, in the effort 
to terminate this fatal discrepancy, and find some language of 
devotion and aspiration, veracious alike from the lips of the 
richest knowledge and the most primitive simplicity. But 
when, like the author whose publication is before us, they 
would abolish the discrepancy by simply reinstating the taught 
in the creed of the untaught; when they insist on the surren¬ 
der without terms of modern philosophy and criticism to the 
“unabated” authority of the Bible; when they pretend to 
wipe out from calculation all the theological researches of the 


THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 


359 


last half-century, as if they were mere ciphers made in sport 
on the tablet of history, and had no effect on our computed 
place at all, — we separate sorrowfully from them, largely 
sympathizing with their wish, but wholly despairing of their 
method. The received theory of the origin of Christianity 
from agencies exclusively divine, and of the infallible charac¬ 
ter of the canonical books, can no more be “ restored,” than 
Roman history can be put back to its state before Niebuhr’s 
time, or Greek mythology be treated as if Ileyne and Ottfried 
Muller had never lived. The present age is not more dis¬ 
tinguished by its advance in the material arts, than by its as¬ 
tonishing progress in the interpretation and true painting of 
the past; a Boeckli or a Grote carries in his mind a picture of 
Athenian life in the days of Pericles more perfect, it is prob¬ 
able, than could be formed by Plutarch or Longinus; and it 
would be strange if the Christian era — certainly the object 
of the most elaborated study — were the only one to escape 
the work of reconstruction, or to undergo it without consider¬ 
able change.' The limits of that change are at present defina¬ 
ble by no consentient estimate; but that they are such as to 
remove the old lines of Christian defence, and require the 
choice of more open ground, can no longer be denied, except 
by the astute consistency of a Romanist hierarchy, and the 
innocent unconsciousness of English sects. When the time 
shall come for a dispassionate history of the first two centu¬ 
ries, — a history which, resolving the canon back into the 
general mass of early Christian literature, shall find an origi¬ 
nal clew for tradition, instead of accepting one. from its post¬ 
humous hand, — which shall detect opinions before they were 
heretic or orthodox, and trace the several streams of tributary 
thought to their confluence in a determinate Christianity, — 
the narrowness of our present polemic will be apparent of it¬ 
self; its fears and triumphs be regarded with a smile; and 
many, both of its positive and negative results, will vanish 
from the interests of religion, and be absorbed in a higher 
view of the relation between the Divine and Human in this 
world. 


360 


TIIE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 


We had hoped at first that the author of “ The Restoration 
of Belief” was about to take up the problem of Christianity 
wdtli a real appreciation of its altered conditions, and with un¬ 
affected justice towards those who cannot solve it like himself. 
His present essay is but the commencement of a series, de¬ 
signed to arrest the progress of educated scepticism, to expose 
the sophistries of modern criticism, and re-establish the plen¬ 
ary authority, as oracles of faith, of the Hebrew and the 
Christian Scriptures. It would perhaps be unreasonable to 
complain that his argument does not march very far in this 
first movement; and engages us rather by the stateliness of 
its step, than by the clearness of its direction. Nevertheless, 
we do think that the discursive license of introductory expo¬ 
sition is carried by him to an extreme which promises ill for 
the exactitude of his method. At the outset he declares that 
the difficulties which embarrass modern faith go down to the 
very depths of philosophy, and can be resolved only by reach¬ 
ing the ultimate roots of thought. Yet he remains on the 
upper surface of history, and, without once hinting how this 
is to lead him to the pith of the controversy, dwells only on 
facts which are undisputed, and his conception of which might 
be as readily gathered from Gibbon as from Neander. Like 
many writers whose eye is caught by grandeur of effect, and 
whose imagination is sensitive to wonder, he is fascinated by 
the moment in human affairs when the Roman Empire was 
exactly poised between the forces of external unity and of 
internal decay, and the political organism of the Past, so 
august in its mass and its proportions, held no soul but the 
young spirit of the Future. Of this crisis, assigned to the 
reign of Alexander Severus, our author presents an impres¬ 
sive and, we believe, a faithful sketch. Amid the splendor, 
the misery, the decay of belief and hope, the universal incer¬ 
titude of that period, there emerges into notice the beautiful 
and beneficent phenomenon of a real Faith, — a Faith that 
can live, a Faith that can die. The inevitable conflict be¬ 
tween this new power and the Pagan prerogatives of the 
Caesars is well brought out by the essayist; and the victory 


THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 


361 


of Christianity is justly ascribed to the peculiar character of 
the religion, as a feeling directed to a person rather than the 
simple assent, to an idea. It was the force of this personal 
feeling which first awakened in men the sentiment of obliga¬ 
tion in regard to religious truth, and substituted faithful vera¬ 
city for indifferentism and laxity of profession. The author 
thus sums up the positions which he regards the present essay 
as establishing: — 

“That the Christian communities did, during the period 
that we have had in view; make and maintain a protest 
against the idol-worship of the times, which protest, severe as 
it was in its conditions, at length won a place in the world for 
a purer theology, and set the civilized races free from the de¬ 
grading superstitions of the Greek Mythology. 

“ That in the course of this arduous struggle, and as an 
unobserved yet inevitable consequence of it, a New Principle 
came to be recognized, and a New Feeling came to govern 
the minds of men, which principle and feeling conferred upon 
the individual man, however low his rank, socially or intel¬ 
lectually, a dignity unknown to classical antiquity ; and which 
yet must be the basis of every moral advancement we can 
desire, or think of as possible. 

“ That the struggle whence resulted these two momentous 

oo 

consequences, affecting the welfare of men for ever, was 
entered upon and maintained on the ground of a definite per¬ 
suasion, or Belief, of which a Person was the object. 

“ That this belief toward a person embraced attributes, not 
only of superhuman excellence and wisdom, but also of super¬ 
human power and authority. If we take the materials 
before us as our guide, it will not be possible to disengage the 
history from these ideas of superhuman dignity.”— p. 106. 

These positions we certainly conceive to be unassailable. 
But they lie so completely out of the field of modern doubt 
and controversy, that we are at a loss to imagine what possi¬ 
ble use the author can make of them. The general features 
of the Christian faith, and the character of the Church, had 
assumed in the third century a determinate form, about which 
31 


3G2 


THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 


there is no important question between believer and unbeliev¬ 
er. Who would deny that the disciples for whom Clement of 
Alexandria and Origen wrote, whom Tertullian and Minucius 
Felix defended, and to whose institutes Cyprian was a con¬ 
vert, believed in Jesus Christ as a person at once historical 
and divine, and were strengthened by that belief to the en¬ 
durance of martyrdom ? The real and only difficulties lie 
higher up, in the attempt to trace the sources and earlier 
varieties of this belief; and if our author can show that, in 
winding its way through two centuries, and traversing several 
distinct regions of thought, it dropped or rounded off no prim¬ 
itive facts, and became mingled with no foreign ideas, — if he 
can establish the essential constancy and uniformity, from the 
first, of the tradition and doctrine which obtained ascendency 
at last, — he will indeed reduce legitimate scepticism within 
very narrow limits, and deserve a niche in the Valhalla of 
critical renown. But if he contemplates clearing these cen¬ 
turies by an argumentative leap; if, from the martyr faith of 
an age later than the Antonines, he means to conclude the 
certainty of the Incarnation two hundred years before, — then 
we must say, he attempts a logical feat which puts to shame 
the cautious steps of such reasoners as Paley, Marsh, and 
Whately. The catena of well-linked testimonies, with its 
bridge of safe footing, which they have endeavored to sling 
across the chasm of the post-apostolic age, is but a paltry cow¬ 
ardice of ecclesiastic engineering to one who can pass the gulf 
upon the wing of inference. An advocate is intelligible, and 
proceeds upon admitted rules of evidence, who says with 
these earlier divines: “ Here are the writings of Paul, of John, 
of Matthew, and of other men who were present at the events 
they relate or assume; whose lives were turned into a new 
channel by their influence; and who went to prison and to 
death rather than deny them. They positively declare that 
they witnessed the most stupendous miracles, and, after their 
Master had been visibly taken up through the clouds, them¬ 
selves habitually exercised the same supernatural power. 
You must admit that the guaranties of testimony can go no 


THE RESTORATION OF RELIEF. 


363 


further: surrender yourself therefore to the Gospel.” This 
is an argument which accomplishes all that is possible with 
historical evidence in such a case; and were its allegations of 
fact sustainable, it would still be the best form into which the 
reasoning could be thrown. Unfortunately, we can no longer 
feel assured that any first-hand testimony exists, as a distin¬ 
guishable element, in the narrative books of the New Testa¬ 
ment ; so that we can regard them only as monuments of the 
state of Christian tradition during a secondary period. Still, 
this flaw is not repaired by striking into the course of belief 
three or four generations lower down, and substituting the 
“ Martyr literature 55 of the third century for the Evangelist 
memorials of the second or the first. And when our author 
transfers to Clement and Origen the praise of unaffected sim¬ 
plicity usually awarded to the Apostolic writers, and actually 
presents it as sufficient proof of divine attributes in Christ, we 
can only suppose that, in his opinion, some truths are too good 
to have any bad way to them. What else can be said of the 
following mode of inference ? 

“ Much do we meet with in these writers that indicates in¬ 
firmity of judgment or a false taste; yet does there pervade 
them a marked simplicity, a grave sincerity, a quietness of 
tone, when He is spoken of whom they acknowledge as Lord. 
If there be one characteristic of these ancient writings that 
is uniform , it is the calm, affectionate, and reverential tone in 
which the Martyr Church speaks of Tiie Saviour Christ ! 

“ I am perfectly sure that, if you could absolutely banish 
from your mind all thought of the inferences and the conse¬ 
quences resulting from your admissions, you would not, after 
perusing this body of Martyr literature, fall into the enormity 
of attributing the notions entertained of Christ, as invested 
with Divine attributes, to any such source as ‘ exaggeration, 5 
or 1 extravagance, 5 or to ‘ Orientalism, 5 or ‘ enlarged Plato¬ 
nism. 5 Exaggeration and inflation have their own style: it is 
not difficult to recognize it. No characteristic of thought or 
language is more obvious. You will fail in your endeavor to 
show that this characteristic does attach to the writings in 


364 


THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 


question ; and why should you make such an attempt ? There 
can be no inducement to do so, unless it appears to be the 
only means of escaping from some consequence which we 
dislike.”—p. 107. 

Our author professedly opposes “ Ancient Christianity ” to 
modern scepticism, because “ History,” as he observes, “ is 
solid ground,” and no region of atmospheric phantasms, births 
from the refracted rays of metaphysic light. History, however, 
is solid ground only so far as it is really explored; and the 
trending of the land and curving of the shore in one latitude 
of time no more enables us to lay down the map of another, 
than an anchorage at the Ganges’ mouth would enable us to 
paint the gorges of the Himalayas, and distinguish the real 
from the fabulous sources of the sacred stream. To take us 
into the basilicas and show us how Christians worshipped in 
the days of Alexander Severus, to introduce us to the Pro¬ 
consul’s court and bid us witness their refusal of divine hom¬ 
age to Cassar’s image, and then ask us whether a faith like 
this could have had any origin but ONE, — this is not history , 
but the mere evasion of history. We want to know, not what 
must have been the source, but what was the source, of the 
great moral power that rose upon the world as Pome declined. 
Whoever wishes to shut out human ideas and natural agen¬ 
cies from participation in the matter, must go patiently through 
the entire remains of the early Christian literature; must 
trace the conflict between the Hebrew and the Pauline Gos¬ 
pel ; find a place for the peculiar version of the religion given 
by the Evangelist John; fix the limits of Ebionitism, of Chili- 
asm, of Docetism; and show that these modes and varieties of 
doctrine stop short of the substance of the early faith, and do 
not enter the canonical Scriptures with any disturbance of 
their historic certainty. Nothing of this kind do we expect 
from our author. For he entertains a conception, respecting 
the logic of Christian evidence, which, however prevalent 
among English divines, betrays in our judgment a mind not 
at all at home with the present conditions of the problem. 
He seems to think that we can Jirst prove the historic truth 


THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 


365 


of the Scriptures in general; and then get rid of the difficul¬ 
ties in particular; and requires us, in obedience to this pe¬ 
dantic law of logical etiquette, to carry into our investigation 
of every successive perplexity the rigid assumption that the 
writings with which we deal are “ inspired,” and their contents 
of “ Divine authority.” 

u When a collection of historic materials, bearing upon a 
particular series of events, is brought forward, it will follow, 
upon the supposition that those events have, on the whole, 
been truly reported, that any hypothesis, the object of which 
is to make it seem probable that no such events did take 
place, must involve absurdities which will be more or less 
glaring. But then, after the truth of the history has been 
established, and when the trustworthiness of the materials has 
been admitted, as we proceed to apply a rigid criticism to 
ambiguous passages, we shall undoubtedly encounter a crowd 
of perplexing disagreements ; and we shall find employment 
enough for all our acumen, and trial enough of our patience, 
in clearing our path. And yet no amount of discourage¬ 
ments, such as these, will warrant our falling back upon a 
supposition which we have already discarded as incoherent 
and absurd.” — p. 110. 

We cannot call this a vicious canon of historical criticism; 
for it simply excludes historical criticism altogether. The 
critic’s work is not a process which can go on generically, 
without addressing itself to any particular matters at all, and 
vindicate comprehensive conclusions in blindness towards 
the cases they comprise. The judgment that, on the whole, 
a certain book contains a true report of events, can only be a 
provisional assumption, founded on natural and childlike trust, 
and can claim no scientific character, till it comes out as a 
collective inference from an investigation in detail of the nar¬ 
rative’s contents. No doubt, the bare fact of the existence of 
Christianity as a great social phenomenon in the age of the 
Antonines, may afford evidence enough that Jesus of Nazareth 
was no imaginary being; the genius of the religion, and the 
traditional picture of its author, may indicate the cast of his 
31 * 


366 


THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 


mind and the intensity of his influence; the institutions of the 
Church may betray its origin in Palestine, and the approxi¬ 
mate date of its birth. But these conclusions, founded en¬ 
tirely on reasonings from human causation, can never carry 
us into the superhuman ; or enable us to say more respecting 
the memorials of the life of Jesus, than that they may be true, 
and do not forfeit, ah initio , their title to examination by fun¬ 
damental anachronism, misplacement, and moral incongruity. 
How far the existence of this primd facie case falls short of 
“ establishing the truth of the history,” and “ the trustworthi¬ 
ness of the materials,” we need not point out to any one ac¬ 
customed to deal with questions of evidence. And as for the 
great proposition, that “ the Gospel of Christ is a supernatu- 
rally authenticated gift,” we cannot imagine how it is to be 
proved in general , without research into a single miracle. Is 
it indifferent to the fact of the Incarnation, that the only two 
accounts of the birth and infancy of Jesus are hopelessly at 
variance with each other ? Is the evidence of the Resurrec¬ 
tion unaffected by the discrepancies on which harmonists have 
spent a fruitless ingenuity ? Are we as sure that, in reading 
the Apostles’ works, we have to do with “ inspired writers,” 
as if they had not made any false announcements about the 
end of the world ? What does our author mean by admitting 
these things as “ difficulties,” yet denying them any just influ¬ 
ence in abatement of our confidence ? He may form one es¬ 
timate of their weight, and his opponent another; but in 
neither case can they be postponed for treatment in a mere 
appendix to the discussion of Christian evidence: they are 
of the very pith of the whole question, and, so long as they 
lie in reserve as quantities of unknown magnitude and direc¬ 
tion of influence, render historical belief and unbelief alike 
irrational. 

Nor can we for a moment allow that the failure of ever so 
many “German theories” to give a satisfactory account of 
the origin of Christianity, is any good reason for contented 
acquiescence in the received doctrine. Our author insists, 
that we must make our definitive choice between some mod- 


TIIE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 


367 


ern hypothesis and the Evangelical tradition; and either take 
the facts as they are handed down to us, or else replace them 
by some better representation. By what right does he im¬ 
pose on us such an alternative necessity? Is the critic dis¬ 
qualified for detecting false history, because he cannot, at his 
distance, write the true ? Is it a thing unknown, as a product 
of scholarship, that fabulous elements disclose themselves amid 
the memorials of fact ? and is it not an acknowledged gain 
to part with an error, though only in favor of an ignorance ? 
If a modern hypothesis as to the mode in which the religion 
arose may “ break down ” by mere internal incoherence and 
improbability, why may not the ancient account, if it should 
be chargeable with similar imperfections, be liable to the same 
fafe ? It is surely conceivable that all the finished represen¬ 
tations we possess, ■— Hebrew and Alexandrine, as well as 
German, — furnish, more or less, an ideal and conjectural 
history of the infancy of Christendom; and that the repro¬ 
duction of that time may not only be now impossible, but have 
already become so ere a hundred years were gone. The 
baffling of one solution implies therefore no triumph of anoth¬ 
er; and if the tradition on which we stand be insecure, our 
position is not improved by clipping the wings of every ad¬ 
venturous hypothesis on which we had thought to escape the 
common ground. 

Our author cannot then change the venue of the great Chris¬ 
tian cause from the first century to the third, and, on the evi¬ 
dence present there, give even preliminary judgment. The 
conflict between the new religion and the old which charac¬ 
terized that period, he paints with striking and truthful effect; 
and, contrasting the severe and holy veracity of martyred dis¬ 
ciples with the careless indifference of Paganism to religious 
truth, he rightly refers the superiority of the Christians to 
their faith in a Person , instead of mere assent to an Opinion. 
Is it, however, correct to regard this as original and exclusive 
to the Gospel, and to set it on the forehead of .the Church as 
the very mark of her distinctive divinity? We think not. 
The same feature is manifest in Judaism, to which again it 


3G8 


THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 


belongs, not as a peculiarity, but in common with every faith 
whose Only God is the apotheosis of humanity. It is the one 
grand moral characteristic of genuine Theism, as opposed to 
Pantheism; rendering it more than the enthusiasm of poetry, 
the earnestness of philosophy, the inspiration of genius, and 
constituting it, in the deepest sense, Religion. Nor is the 
ground of the distinction far to seek. Religion, in its ultimate 
essence, is a sentiment of Reverence for a Higher than our¬ 
selves. Higher than ourselves, however, can none be, that 
have not what is most august among our endowments; none, 
therefore, by reason of size, of strength, of duration; none 
simply by beauty or by skill; none even by largeness of dis¬ 
cerning thought, but only by free and realizing preference of 
the most Just and Good. A Being of living Will can alone 
be nobler than myself, lift me above the level of my actual 
mind by looking at my latent nature, and emancipate me 
into the captivity of worship. In other words, reverence can 
attach itself exclusively to a Person ; it cannot direct itself 
on what is impersonal, — on physical facts, on unconscious 
laws, on necessary forces, on inanimate objects and their re¬ 
lations, on space, though it be infinite, on duration, though it 
be eternal. These all, even when they rule us, are lower than 
ourselves; they may evade our knowledge, defy our power, 
overwhelm our imagination, but never rise to be our equals, 
or conspire to furnish even the symbol of our God. The 
mere deification of Nature, the recognition of oneness pervad¬ 
ing her variety, the sense of an absolute ground abiding be¬ 
hind her transient phenomena, may supply a faith adequate to 
the awakening of wonder and the apprehension of ideal beau¬ 
ty, but not to the practical consecration of life ; glorifying the 
universe as a temple of Art, but railing off within it no oratory 
of Conscience. In order to extract anything like a religion 
of conduct from this type of belief, its hierophants are obliged 
to approach as near as they can to the language of proper 
Theism, and not even despise typographical aid for pushing 
personification to the verge of personality; uttering various 
warnings not to neglect the “ intentions of Nature,” or insult 


THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 


369 


the “ Relentless Veracities,” and inviting sundry offenders to 
blush before “ the Eternal Powers.” The whole force of such 
expressions is evidently due to the false semblance of living 
thought and will with which they clothe the conceptions of 
mere abstract relations or physical tendencies. These rich 
tints are no self-color, but a borrowed light reflected from a 
grander Presence studiously withdrawn from view ; and when 
their gloss is gone, no positive residuum is found, but a doc¬ 
trine of hope and fear, without any element of Duty. It were 
a mockery, an inanity, to bid a man spend his affections on 
hypostatized laws that neither know nor answer him. In his 
crimes, it is not the heavy irons of his prison, but the deep 
eye of his judge, from which he shrinks; find in his repentance 
he weeps, not upon the lap of Nature, but at the feet of God. 
In his allegiance, his vow is made, not to the certainty of 
facts, but to the majesty of Right, and the authority of an In¬ 
finitely Just; and his acts of trust are directed by no means 
to the steadiness of creation’s ways, but to the faithfulness of 
a perfect Mind. In short, all the sentiments characteristic 
of religion presuppose a Personal Object, and assert their 
power only where Manhood is the type of Godhead. This 
condition was imported, or rather continued, from the Hebrew 
to the Christian system; and brought with it the devout loy¬ 
alty of heart, the singleness of service, the incorruptible hero¬ 
ism of endurance, which had encountered Antiochus Epi- 
phanes at Jerusalem, as it now met Pliny in Bithynia, and 
Quadratus at Smyrna. The Paganism of the Empire, on the 
other hand, failed entirely of this condition. It was a mere 
nature-worship, expressive of the political dynamics by which, 
through the award of a mysterious necessity, Rome had be¬ 
come the centre of the world. If, among the deities whose 
congress was now assembled on the Tiber, there were any 
which once, in their indigenous seats, had commanded the full 
moral faith, and touched the true theistic devotion, of a peo¬ 
ple, that time had passed; and the conquered tribes suffered 
a more fatal loss when the victorious city adopted their re¬ 
ligion, than when she crushed their liberty. Removed to 


370 


THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 


Rome, the rites of a provincial worship expressed nothing 
except that its gods were gods no more, but had descended 
from divine monarchic rights to a place among a pensioned 
hierarchy. Vanquished divinities inevitably become delegat¬ 
ed powers of nature, and resign their sceptre to the sovereign 
they are compelled to own. As the administration of the Em¬ 
pire embraced a congeries of checked nationalities, so did its 
pantheon include a collection of extinguished religions. While 
as Imperator the head of the state was the embodiment of its 
unity by natural force, as Divus he represented its unity by 
preternatural sanction; and the divine honors paid to him 
were the acknowledgment of a necessity more than human 
in the culminating majesty of Rome. These honors would 
be freely rendered to him by those who looked on all realized 
existence, on everything charged with force enough to come 
up and be, as equally decreed by “ the Eternal Powers,” — 
equally divine. Such homage would appear to them the 
mere expression of a fact, and a graceful owning of mysteri¬ 
ous fates in its production; and no scruple could withhold 
them from an act which contradicted nothing in their mind, 
and did but fling a breath of pious incense around the thing 
that veritably was. It were absurd to expect the protest of 
a martyr from a man whose religion you cannot contradict; 
who will see a God wherever you ask him; and whose wor¬ 
ship asserts nothing but that, a phenomenon being there, an 
occult power is behind it. A faith of this sort is deficient, as 
an Hegelian would say, “ in the moment of negation ” ; it is 
all unobstructed affirmation, and can strike no light because 
it thus finds nothing to dash itself against. But let the divine 
element in the universe cease to be impersonal and impar¬ 
tially coalescent with the whole, let it live an Individual Mind, 
and the requisite antagonism immediately appears. To the 
Jew, the worship of Caesar would be no other than high trea¬ 
son to Jehovah, whose tool, whose whip of lightning, and 
whose cup of consolation the Pagan Emperor might become ; 
but whose emblem and incarnation he could so little be, that 
he rather stood defiantly at the head of the opposing realm, 


THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 


371 


and, even when forced to be the organ, did not cease to be 
the competitor of God. For opposing realm there must be, 
wherever proper Theism exists. Man feels that his personal 
attributes, his will, his character, his conscience, demand con¬ 
flict for their condition, and without the possibility of ill could 
never be; and when he carries them out into the infinite re¬ 
gion, to serve as his image of the Highest, they bear with 
them the inseparable shadow of evil, and give it place in the 
universe, as the darkness in whose absence light would want 
its distinction, the privative without which the beauty of holi¬ 
ness were nothing positive. Hence, expressed or unexpressed, 
a dualism mingles with all genuine theistic faith. All is not 
divine for it. It has a devil’s province somewhere. Face to 
face, as Ebal to Gerizim, the frown of blighted rock to the 
smile of verdant heights, — hostile as the priest of falsehood 
to the true prophet, — there stand contrasted in this creed 
two domains of the world, — one surrendered to insurgent 
powers, the other reserved as the nursing ground from which 
right and truth shall be spread. To the Hebrew, the Pagan 
world was given over to a false allegiance, and inspired with 
diabolical delusions. For him to sacrifice to the genius of 
Caesar, would have been, therefore, a desertion to the enemies 
of God, forbidden by every claim of faithfulness and veracity. 
Thus we conceive that the moral conditions of the martyrs’ 
protest against idol-worships were complete within the limits 
of Judaism before the mission of Christ; and that the essence 
of it lies, not in the exclusive characteristics of the Gospel, 
but in the difference between Theistic reverence for a Per¬ 
sonal Being, and the Pantheistic acknowledgment of an im¬ 
personal divineness. The peculiar function of Christianity 
in this respect was to become missionary to the world of this 
heroic fidelity transmitted from the parent faith, and hitherto 
bounded by its limits; and to find a place in the universal 
conscience of civilized nations for the duty of bearing testi¬ 
mony, though with tortures and death, to the pricelessness of 
truth and the sanctity of conviction. True it is that the Gos¬ 
pel was qualified for this office by directing human faith upon 


372 


THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 


a Person ; and would have exercised no such power, had it 
been a mere philosophy presenting propositions for assent, 
instead of a Living Mind for trust and reverence. But this 
condition would have been attained by the simple extension 
of the Jewish Theism. The Personality, which is needed as 
a centre of intense fealty and affection, is found in the God 
of Hebrew tradition, and, for its effects in kindling a martyr 
courage and constancy, did not require to be sought in the 
historical Jesus of Nazareth. He, no doubt, as the mediate 
expression of the Supreme Will, as the Being with whom 
the Church stood in direct contact, as the presence of the 
Divine in the Human, was the object of the disciples’ actual 
allegiance. We do not in the least question this as a fact , 
but only as a necessity , ere we can account for the moral fea¬ 
tures of a martyr age. 

In singling out, as one of the grandest practical results of 
Christianity, the recognition it has obtained for the obliga¬ 
tions of religious truth , our author has rightly seized a char¬ 
acteristic distinction of modern from ancient society. The 
principle is a real agency of the first order in history; we do 
not accuse him of overrating its importance, but of mistaking 
its genealogy. And now we must add, that if we differ from 
him as to the source whence it comes, we differ still more as 
to the issues whither it conducts. So inconsiderately does he 
allow himself to be borne away by his evangelical zeal, that he 
claims for the Gospel, not only the glory of first revealing, but 
the exclusive right of ever practising, the duties of religious 
veracity. None but historical believers have the least title 
to attach any sacredness to their convictions, or to feel any hes¬ 
itation about denying them. What business have the authors 
of the “ Phases of Faith,” and the “ Creed of Christendom,” 
to any better morality of belief than Gallio or Lucian ? If 
they have not fallen back into the Pagan indifferentism, they 
ought to have done so, and our author will continue very in¬ 
dignant till they do. He is offended with Mr. Newman for 
asking judgment on his “ argument and himself, as before 
the bar of God ”; and with Mr. Greg for saying that, in the 


THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 


373 


process of changing cherished beliefs, “ the pursuit of truth is 
a daily martyrdom,” and for giving “ honor to those who en¬ 
counter it, saddened, weeping, trembling, but unflinching still! ” 
And he is not ashamed to declare that the guileless veracity 
which in himself would be a martyr’s constancy, would be in 
another an overweening conceit. So astonishing, logically 
and ethically, are his statements on this subject, and so cu¬ 
riously do they determine his intellectual position, that we 
must present them in his own words: — 

“ We Christian men of this age, along with our venerated 
martyr brethren of the ancient Church, in making this profes¬ 
sion, — that we may not lie to God, nor deny before men our 
inward conviction in matters of religion; we (as they did) 
affirm that which is consistent within itself, and which, in the 
whole extent of its meaning, is certain and is reasonable, grant 
us only our initial postulate, that Christianity is from heaven. 

“But how is it, when this same solemn averment comes 
from the lips of those who deny that postulate, and who scorn 
to recognize the voice of God in the Book? It is just thus; 
and those whom it concerns so to do, owe it to the world and 
to themselves to make the ingenuous avowal. 

“ In the first place, the style and the very terms employed 
by these writers in enouncing the fact of the martyrdom they 
are undergoing, are all a flagrant plagiarism, and nothing bet¬ 
ter ! A claim, in behalf of the Gospel, must be made of what 
is its own, and which these writers, without leave asked, have 
appropriated. As to every word and phrase upon which the 
significance of this their profession turns, it must be given up, 
leaving them in possession of so much only of the meaning of 
such phrases as would have been intelligible to Plutarch, to 
Porphyry, and to M. Aurelius. A surrender must be 
made of the words Conscience, and Truth, and Right¬ 
eousness, and Sin ; and, alas! modern unbelievers must be 
challenged to give me back that one awe-fraught Name 
which they (must I not plainly say so ?) have stolen out of 
the Book ; when they have frankly made this large surren¬ 
der, we may return to them the to Qelov of classical antiquity. 
32 


374 


THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 


“Yet this plagiarism, as to terms, is the smaller part of 
that invasion of rights with which the same persons are 
chargeable. It is reasonable, and it is what a good man must 
do, to suffer anything rather than deny a persuasion, which 
is such that he could not, if he would, cast it off. So it was 
with the early Christian martyrs ; their persuasion of the 
truth of the Gospel had become part of themselves; it was 
faith absolute, in the fullest sense of the word. The same 
degree of irresistible persuasion attaches to the conclusions of 
mathematical or physical science ; but it can never belong to 
an opinion, or to an undefined abstract belief. A man may 
indeed choose to die rather than contradict his personal per¬ 
suasion of the truth of an opinion; but in doing so he has no 
right to take to himself the martyr’s style. So to speak is to 
exhibit, not constancy, but opinionativeness, or an overweening 
confidence in his own reasoning faculty. 

“ Polycarp could not have refused to die when the only 
alternative was to blaspheme Christ, his Lord; but Plutarch 
could not have been required to suffer in attestation of his 
opinion, — good as it was, — that the poets have done ill in 
attributing the passions and the perturbations of human nature 
to the immortal gods; nor Seneca, in behalf of those astro¬ 
nomical and meteorological theories with which he entertains 
himself and his friend Lucilius. 

“When those who, after rejecting Christianity, talk of suf¬ 
fering for the ‘ truth of God,’ and speak as if they were con¬ 
science-bound ‘toward God,’ they must know that they not 
only borrow a language which they are not entitled to avail 
themselves of, but that they invade a ground of religious be¬ 
lief whereon they can establish for themselves no right of 
standing. They may indeed profess what opinion they please 
as to the Divine attributes; but they cannot need to be told 
that which the misgivings of their own hearts so often whisper 
to them, that all such opinions are, at the very best, open to 
debate, and must always be indeterminate, and that at this 
time their own possession of the opinion which just now they 
happen to cling to, is, in the last degree, precarious. How 


THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 


375 


then can martyrdom be transacted among those whose tread¬ 
ing is upon the fleecy clouds of undemonstrable religious feel¬ 
ing ?”—pp. 92-94. 

If, being orthodox, you die at the stake, you are a martyr; 
if, being heretic, — why, then you are a man burnt; — a 
doctrine which Robert Hall compressed within the narrowest 
compass, when he said, “ It is the saint which makes the mar¬ 
tyr, not the martyr the saint.” This is the very Gospel of 
intolerance; and whoever preaches it may feel assured that 
he can lend no help in any worthy “ Restpration of Belief ” ; 
for he is himself infected with the most profound and pene¬ 
trating of scepticisms, — scepticisms of moral realities. The 
rule, u that we may not lie to God, nor deny before men our 
inward conviction in matters of religion,” is, in our author’s 
view, the gift and glory of Christianity. Be it so. This rule 
either holds for all men at all times, or it does not; if there 
be persons who, notwithstanding it, may lie to God, and deny 
their inward conviction, then the Scriptures, in communicat¬ 
ing it, have revealed no universal principle of duty, no obli¬ 
gation having its seat in the nature of things and the constitu¬ 
tion of the human soul, but a mere sectional by-law, an ar¬ 
bitrary precept for the security and good ordering of one 
exclusive community. Then must we talk of it no more so 
exceedingly proudly, as if it were a hidden truth revealed, a 
latent beauty opened; it is no part of the holy legislation of 
the universe, but a statutory enactment under which we fall, 
or from which we escape, as we pass in or out at the door of 
a certain historical belief. Need we say that this side of the 
alternative strips Christianity of every pretension to be a 
moral revelation at all ? If, to take the other side, the rule 
in question does hold for all men, then it is no less binding on 
Mr. Newman and Mr. Greg than on our author; and in bow¬ 
ing to its authority and owning its sanctity, they render a 
homage as devoutly true as his, only different in this, that, 
while they feel no disturbance from his kneeling in the sanctu¬ 
ary at their side, he cannot be at peace till he has sprung to 
his feet and hurled them from the place. They are guilty of 


376 


THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 


“ plagiarism ” forsooth ! And in what ? In knowing their duty, 
without knowing where they learned it! O shame upon this 
greediness, that would turn moral truth itself, and struggling 
aspiration, into a property! As if Christ were one to stand 
upon the copyright of revelation, and, unless his name were 
in the title-page, would suffer neither thought nor prayer to 
dedicate itself to God! Our author, as public prosecutor in 
the Supreme Court, demands that the defendants shall empty 
themselves out of every earnest sentiment, and surrender 
back the words cpnscience, and truth, and righteous¬ 
ness, and sin, and God, “as stolen from the Book”! What 
then was “ the Book ” given for, but that it might freely fur¬ 
nish these ? — and how better can it fulfil its end, than by 
opening for them a sacred welcome wherever the things are 
which they disclose ? Let their spirit breathe where it listeth; 
it will not be less a Holy Spirit that we know not “ whence it 
cometh ”: nor let it be forgot how old a feature of evangelic 
blessing it is, that “he that was healed wist not who it was” 
As “ the Book ” does not, by its presence, create the facts 
which it reveals, so neither does its absence or rejection destroy 
them. Conscience, as an element of human nature, does not 
come or go, — God, as reality in the universe, does not live 
or perish, — according as the Bible is kept in the pocket or 
laid upon the shelf; even if their first witness were in Scrip¬ 
ture, they themselves are in the world, — as active, as near, as 
certain, in the transactions of to-day, as in the affairs of dis¬ 
tant history. Scientific truth, once well ascertained, can take 
care of itself, without being everywhere attended by the re¬ 
port of its first discovery; it is in the safe keeping of the 
objects on which it writes a new meaning, and the phenomena 
amid which it introduces a fresh symmetry. And moral 
truth, when once embodied and revealed, is not less indepen¬ 
dent of its earliest expression; it finds its response in human 
consciousness, its reflection from human life, and weaves it¬ 
self up into the very fabric of many souls, whose pattern 
bears no motto of its origin. Thus “revelation”—just in 
proportion as it is revelation, and tells us what is cognate to 


THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 


377 


ourselves, and bound up with the realities around us — passes 
of necessity into “ natural religion ”; and precisely according 
to the measure in which it does so, will it acquire strength 
and permanence, and dispense with evidence by merging into 
self-evidence. Did it awaken in us no confirming experience, 
did it nowhere link itself with the visible system of things, — 
then, solving nothing, glorifying nothing, missed by all the 
moving indices of nature and Providence, it would sit apart, 
and become incredible. That could hardly be a truth at all, 
which, after roaming the world and searching the soul for 
eighteen centuries, has found no natural ground on which to 
rest, and must wander as an ipse dixit still. And if natural 
ground it has acquired, that is surely a proper basis for 
its present support; it may innocently cease to be held on 
mere authority; the very “ plagiarism ” so vehemently de¬ 
nounced is rather the fulfilment than the destruction of the 
faith, for it is only that men no longer resort to an oracle 
for things which the oracle has enabled them to see for them¬ 
selves. 

Our Christian advocate, however, is not content with re¬ 
serving to his side the sole power of discerning the duty of 
religious veracity; he further claims the sole right to practise 
it. He teaches that it is not binding on all men at all times ; 
and that its obligation is in any case conditional on the “ initial 
postulate, that Christianity is from heaven.” He thinks, ap¬ 
parently, that the duty is not so much repealed as constituted 
by the Gospel, so as to have no existence beyond the pale. 
We can collect from his words two considerations, under 
whose influence he seems to pronounce this strange judgment. 
He evidently assumes that the duty of veracious profession is 
contingent partly on the object-matter of belief; partly on the 
degree of evidence. If my faith is directed towards a Person , 
then, he implies, there is treachery, even blasphemy, in deny¬ 
ing it; but if not, my disclaimer gives no one any title to 
complain, and I cannot be expected to die on behalf of a 
proposition. Polycarp must not renounce Christ, his Lord; 
but Plutarch might very properly recant, without at all alter- 
32 * 


378 


THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 


ing, his judgment against the poets, for ascribing passions to 
the gods. Is it so, indeed ? Then there is no harm in a lie, 
unless some one is betrayed or insulted by it besides the hear¬ 
ers whom we deceive, — and we may report as falsely as we 
please our persuasion about things , provided we are true to 
our sentiments about persons ? With full recollection of the 
questionable verdicts, on problems of veracity, which are given 
by Xenophon and Plato, Aristotle and Cicero, we doubt wheth¬ 
er any Pagan moralist can be quoted in favor of a doctrine so 
unworthy as this. The author seems to imagine that the 
obligation to speak the truth is a mere duty of personal affec¬ 
tion ; and that in the absence of this element, its claims alto¬ 
gether disappear. Identifying falsehood with detraction and 
ingratitude, he concludes that, since an abstract theory is in¬ 
sensible to what people say about it, and can have no services 
owing to it, it may be blamelessly repudiated by those who 
really believe it. This is tantamount to an expunging of ve¬ 
racity from the list of human duties altogether; for it gives 
importance to what is purely accidental, and slights what is 
alone essential to it. The conditions of a lie, in all its full¬ 
blown wickedness, are quite complete, when there is a person 
to speak it, a person to hear it, and a social state to be the 
theatre of the deception; should there be also a person spoken 
of, that is a circumstance in no w'ay requisite to constitute the 
guilt, but a supplementary condition, flinging in a new element 
of pravity, and turning falsehood into faithlessness. The in¬ 
troduction of this additional person into the case may doubt¬ 
less render the offence much more flagrant, especially if he 
be one who has acknowledged claims on gratitude and rever¬ 
ence. Calumny and perfidy are justly held in deeper abhor¬ 
rence than equivocation unstained with malignity. But to be 
unaffected by the criminality till it kindles with this diabolical 
glare, and not even to believe in it unless it smells sulphurous 
and burns red, betrays a perception too much accustomed to 
melodramatic contrasts of representation to appreciate the 
more delicate tints and finer moral lights of the real and open 
day. And so far from the glory of martyrdom being height- 


THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 


379 


ened by the presence of deep personal affection as its inspira¬ 
tion, this very circumstance renders the act a less arduous 
sacrifice; just as to fall in the hot blood of battle may need 
less heroism of will, than to die under the knife upon the sur¬ 
geon’s table. In proportion as the denial of Christ in the 
hour of trial would be the more intolerable blasphemy, must 
the temptation to it be less overwhelming, and the merit of a 
good confession less amazing. And those who, in matters 
touching no such deep affection, can yet be true, — those who, 
in simple clearness of conscience, can dispense, if need be, 
with the help of enthusiasm, and so shut their lips against a 
lie, that not the searing iron can open them, — those who do 
not want a grand occasion, but just as certainly use the small¬ 
est, to fling back the thing that is not, — have assuredly a 
soul of higher prowess and more severely proved fidelity to 
God And it is a heartless thing to turn round upon these 
men, and taunt them with having no one at whose feet to lay 
their offering, and no popular sympathy to redeem their up¬ 
rightness from the imputation of conceit. 

There is, however, another consideration which weighs with 
our author in granting to “ modern unbelievers ” a dispensa¬ 
tion from the duty of religious veracity. They have only a 
“ personal persuasion ” resting on precarious grounds, and not 
the certitude attaching to “ the conclusions of mathematical 
and physical science ” ; and it would be folly to suffer on be¬ 
half of “ undemonstrable religious feeling ” ! Are we then to 
lay it down as a canon in ethics, that intensity of assurance 
is the measure of our obligation to speak the truth, — so that 
we are to state our certainties correctly, but may tell lies 
about our doubts ? If so, scrupulous fidelity is incumbent on 
us only within the limits of deductive science and of immedi¬ 
ate personal observation; and in the great sphere of human 
affairs, in matters of historical, moral, and political judgment, 
nay, in the incipient stage of all knowledge, we may say and 
unsay, may play fast and loose with our convictions, according 
as the favor or the fear of men hangs over us. Newton was 
bound to stand by his “ Principia ”; but Locke might have 


380 


THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 


renounced his treatise on Government and taken his oath to 
the divine rights of kings ! Were he indeed to refuse so easy 
a compliance, it would be a great reflection upon his modesty; 
for if a man, on being threatened with death, will not belie 
his own persuasion of probable truth, he is chargeable with 
“ overweening confidence in his own reasoning faculty ” ! It 
is happy for the world that it does not always except the 
morals of the Church, but brings an unperverted feeling to 
correct the twisted logic of belief. “ Opinion,” a wise man 
has said, “ is but knowledge in the making ”; and how little 
knowledge would get made, if opinion were emptied of its 
conscience, and looked on itself as an egotism rather than a 
trust! If there is one fruit of intellectual culture which more 
than another dignifies and ennobles it, it is the scrupulous rev¬ 
erence it trains for the smallest reality, its watchfulness for 
the earliest promise of truth, its tender care of every stamen 
in the blossoming of thought, from whose flower-dust the seed 
of a richer futurity may grow. To cut against this fine ve¬ 
racious sense with the weapons of unappreciating sarcasm, 
and crush its objects into the ground as weeds with the heel 
of orthodox scorn, is a feat which can advance the step of 
Christian evidence only by betraying the Christian ethics. 
Our author has entangled himself in the metaphor indicated 
by the word “ martyrdom ”; he thinks of the confessor as 
bearing witness to something, — which is indeed quite true ; 
and supposes that the things to which he bears witness must 
be the facts or doctrines held by him ; and this is not true at 
all. For that which we attest in the hour of persecution is 
simply our own state of mind; our belief and not the object 
believed. We are required to utter words, or to perforin 
acts, that shall give report of our persuasion; this persuasion 
is a fact in our personal psychology about which there is no 
ambiguity; which, as a presence in our consciousness, is 
wholly unaffected by the question how it got there, and by 
what logical tenure it holds its seat. Whether we have de¬ 
monstrated it into the mind or fetched it thither in a dream, 
whether we had it yesterday or shall continue to have it to- 


THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 


881 


morrow, are matters in no way altering the fact that it is 
there ; and if we say “ No ” to it, while conscious of a “ Yes,” 
the sin is neither greater when the belief concerns the prop¬ 
erties of a geometric solid, nor less when it touches some in¬ 
determinate problem of metaphysics. The logical ground of 
our judgments is various without end, — perception, testi¬ 
mony, reasoning, in every possible combination. But the 
persuasion, once attained, is a simple phenomenon, whose 
affirmation, or denial, being always positively true, cannot 
change its moral complexion with every shade in the evidence 
now left behind. It is plain that, in our author’s favorite case 
of martyrdom, no testimony could be borne by the Christian 
to anything but his own conviction. Polycarp and Cyprian 
could only answer in the face of death, that they were Chris¬ 
tians ; it w r as not “ on behalf of” any outward fact, but simply 
because they would not belie their inward belief, that they laid 
down their lives. And had Plutarch been dragged before 
some antliropomorphist inquisition, and been called on pub¬ 
licly to declare his belief that the immortal gods were well 
and truly painted by the poets as having passions like man¬ 
kind, the lie to which he was tempted would have been pre¬ 
cisely of the same kind; and had it passed his lips, would 
have made him despicable as an apostate. He had no power, 
nor had the Church confessor, over the truth or evidence of 
his opinion; neither of them had any witness , in the strict 
sense, to bear; but both might veraciously scorn to deny a 
fact unambiguously present to their self-knowledge. If the 
heathen’s firmness is an example of “ overweening confidence 
in his own reasoning faculty,” by -what favoring difference 
does the Christian’s escape the same imputation? That his 
faith is “ absolute,” his persuasion “ irresistible,” so far from 
furnishing a vindication, only avows the fact that his “ confi¬ 
dence ” is intense; whether it be “ overweening ” too, must 
depend on the proportion between the certitude he feels and 
the grounds of just assurance he possesses. But at all events 
it is a confidence — in this case as in the other — undeniably 
reposed “ in his own reasoning faculty .” How else could 


382 


THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 


any belief—except a groundless belief—reach the convert’s 
mind at all ? It is vain to pretend that the receivers of an 
historic doctrine plant their reliance piously on God, while 
its rejecters proudly trust themselves. There is no less sub¬ 
jective action of the mind on the positive side than on the 
negative; and on the soundness of that action does the worth 
of the result in either instance depend. The evidence on 
both sides comes into the same court of criticism; and plead¬ 
ing and counter-pleading must ask a hearing from the same 
judicial intelligence. If our author refers the Gospels to the 
first century, and his opponents to the second; if he finds a 
miracle in the gift of tongues, they a delusion ; if he thinks 
that the reasoning out of the Old Testament in the New is 
exegetically and logically sound, they that it is in both re¬ 
spects unsound; — is he not concerned with the same topics, 
conducting the same processes, liable to the same mistaken 
estimates, as they ? How then can he flatter himself that 
the same thing is believed on one tenure, and disbelieved on 
quite another ? How affect, even while playing the advocate, 
to be raised above the contingencies of the “ reasoning facul¬ 
ty,” and entitled to rebuke its pride ? How renounce it for 
himself, appeal to it for your assent, abuse it for your dissent, 
in the wayward course of two or three pages ? 

Our author stands, therefore, in spite of every effort to es¬ 
cape it, on the same logical ground as his opponents ; and 
they, notwithstanding his objection to their companionship, 
are on the same footing of religious obligation with himself. 
He is offended to find such a one as Mr. Newman on the 
same sacred pavement, and to overhear from unbelieving lips 
the genuine tones of prayer; and, thanking God, apprises 
men that he “is not as this publican.” He prosecutes for 
trespass all who, after rejecting his Christianity, can dare to 
profess allegiance to the “ truth of God,” and “ speak as if 
they were conscience-bound towards God.” Are they then 
not so bound ? Has no one a conscience except the approved 
historical believer ? Is it not in others also a Divine voice, 
— a Holy Spirit, — which to resist and stifle were the true 


THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 


383 


and only “Infidelity”? Surely the faith in God, and the 
earnest acceptance of the laws of duty as the expression of 
his authority, are not forbidden to men who cannot assume 
the disciple’s style. These sentiments, so far from waiting 
on revelation for their possibility, are the pre-requisite con¬ 
ditions of all revelation, the state of mind to which it speaks, 
the secret power by which it finds us out; and if men cannot 
be “ conscience-bound towards God ” before and without Chris¬ 
tianity, never can they become so after it and ivith it. It 
does not take us up as atheists and brutes, and supply us 
with the faculties as well as the substance of faith; else were 
there no medium of suasion across the boundary of unbelief; 

— but it appeals to us as knowing much and aspiring to 
more, — as already before the face, only shrinking from the 
clear look of God, — as feeling the divine restraint upon us 
of justice, purity, and truth, but unable, without some eman¬ 
cipating power, to turn it into freedom and joy. This spirit 
of profound sympathy, not of arrogant insult, towards the 
highest faiths and affections of our nature, we recognize in 
the portraiture and teachings of Jesus Christ; and when we 
find one who, like our author, instead of rejoicing that the 
sacred embers of nature are yet warm, instead of kneeling 
over them to fan them with a breath of reverence into a 
flame, flings them with scattering scorn on the damp ground 
of his own moral scepticism to show how little they will burn, 

— we see reversed in the “ Restorer of Belief” the divine 
temper of the “Author of Faith.” Such a teacher will vain¬ 
ly endeavor to recover by severity of warning the influence 
he forfeits by want of sympathy. He cannot frighten men 
like Parker, Newman, Greg, by appealing to fancied “ mis¬ 
givings of their own hearts ” respecting the precariousness of 
their convictions, and uttering dismal prophecies about yawn¬ 
ing gulfs ; which, however alarming as a shudder of rhetoric, 
can disturb no quiet trust in reality. Let us hear the words, 
however: — 

“ Educated men should not wait to be reminded that those 
who, after abandoning a peremptory historic belief, endeavor 


384 


THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 


to retain Faith and Piety for their comfort, stand upon a slope 
that has no ledges: Atheism in its simplest form yawns to 
receive those who there stand; and they know themselves to 
be gravitating towards it. 

“ It would be far more reasonable for a man to die as a 
martyr for Atheism, — a stage beyond which no further pro¬ 
gress is possible,— than to do so at any point short of that 
terminus, knowing as he does that every day is bringing him 
nearer to the gulf. The stronger the mind is, and the more 
it has of intellectual massiveness, the more rapid will be its 
descent upon this declivity. Minds of little density, and of 
much airy sentiment, may stay long where they are, just as 
gnats and flies walk to and fro upon the honeyed sides of a 
china vase; they do not go down, but never again will they 

fly.”—p. 94. 

This is one of the conventional minatory arguments which 
betray the absence of security and repose from the heart of 
the received theology ; whose teachers could never propound 
it, except from a position of conscious danger. They must 
imagine in their own case that, if they were to find the Gos¬ 
pels no longer oracular, they would plunge at once into end¬ 
less depths of negation; and that, unless they can refute an 
interpretation of De Wette’s, or correct a date of Baur’s, there 
-will be eternal night in heaven. They feel the universe, and 
life, and love, and sorrow, and the history of times and races 
unbaptized, to be all atheistic through and through, — profane 
to the core, — untraced by a vestige, untransfigured by a 
color, of divine significance. What they can think of a Being 
who creates all reality and lives in it on these blindfold terms, 
we will not attempt to decide; but it is no wonder that, hav¬ 
ing once brought themselves to believe in Him, they feel how 
a single move would overset them into disbelief. This thing, 
however, is true of their own state of mind alone; whose 
spaces, dark throughout with scepticism but for one distant 
lamp, might easily be left without a ray. It is consistent 
neither with reason nor with experience to threaten with 
this rule men who have opened their souls to something else 


THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 


385 


than documentary authority. It is notoriously false that 
the career of historic doubt usually terminates in the loss of 
all faith in God; nor do we suppose that our author would 
have awarded to the atheist, for actually reaching this point, 
the praise of “ intellectual massiveness,” had he not wanted a 
heavy weight to slide down his metaphorical inclined plane,* 
and outstrip the slippery believers who try to stop half-way. 
The accusation against Theism, of being possible to the 
light-minded and superficial, — a mere sweet-bait to entrap 
the silly insects of the intellectual world, — is confuted by the 
whole history of philosophy and human culture; all whose 
grandest names have connected themselves with the recooni- 

o 

tion of a religion indigenous or accessible to the faculties of 
the soul. Let our author collect on one side of his library 
all the giants and heroes of utter disbelief, and on the other 
the literature of natural faith; nay, let him ransack for fresh 
names and forgotten suffrages Lalande’s “ Dictionnaire des 
Athees ”; and if, having weighed the various merits of Leu¬ 
cippus and Lucretius, of Baron d’Holbach and La Mettrie, 
of Robert Owen and Atkinson, he thinks them of more ster¬ 
ling mass than the pure gold of thought and life accumulated 
by Socrates, Plato, Antoninus, — by Anselm and Abelard, 
Descartes and Arnaud, — by the authors of the “ Theodicee,” 
the “ Essay on the Human Understanding,” and the “ Prin¬ 
ciples of Human Knowledge,” — by Kant and Cousin,—by 
Butler and Paley and Arnold, — we can only profess a dis¬ 
sent from his intellectual taste, not less than from his moral 
judgment. 

The few pages on which we have been commenting were 
the first — though they are near the end of the treatise — 

* The question has been raised, whether the author of “ The Restoration 
of Belief,” who presents himself to us through the Cambridge publisher, is 
really a University man? To those who are curious about such critical 
problems, we would suggest this consideration, as having some bearing on 
the case: “ Could a person who had studied the laws of accelerated motion 
at the authoritative school of English science have so forgotten his formulas 
as to make his heaviest man on that account his quickest ? ” The authorship, 
however, is not less evident than if the book had been published by Messrs. 
Longmans, or by Holdsworth and Ball. 

33 



386 


THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 


that fully opened our eyes to the author’s theological animus. 
For a while, his large professions, and,' no doubt, sincere pur¬ 
pose of fairness, — his apparent breadth of view, and his free 
hand in putting down his subject on the canvas, — secured our 
admiring confidence, and made us feel that here at length 
justice, earnestness, and accomplishment will go together. 
One feature, indeed, we noticed as giving a suspicious appear¬ 
ance to his equity of temper; it displays itself more in cen¬ 
soriousness towards his friends, than in large-heartedness 
towards his antagonists. He readily allows faults*in the ad¬ 
vocates of his own side, but is never carried away into even 
a momentary appreciation of the other. This particular form 
of impartiality, which consists in detracting from the merits 
of allies, instead of delighting in those of opponents, is the 
ecclesiastic counterfeit of candor, — the half-shekel, which is 
alone payable in the temple-service, but which nowhere, save 
at the sacred money-table, is deemed equivalent to the good 
Roman coin of common life. Much as we dislike, the chink 
of this consecrated metal, we hoped that it would only ring 
for a passing instant on the ear. But alas ! it is an indication 
seldom deceptive; and we feel constrained to report that 
there are, in this tract, quotations from both Mr. Newman 
and Mr. Greg, which, if we were in the court of veracity, and 
not of theology, we would say are unconscientiously made. 
The quotations are made anonymously as well as unfaithfully, 
so that the reader, unless haunted by the checking impres¬ 
sions of memory, cannot correct the injustice of the writer. 
The “ Phases of Faith” describes, it will be remembered, the 
gradual course of Mr. Newman’s defections from his original 
orthodoxy. His first movements of doubt were naturally 
timid and inconsiderable, bringing him only' to the conclusion, 
that the genealogy in the first chapter of Matthew was copied 
wrong, and counted wrong, from the Old Testament. On 
this step followed a second, and a third, each more important 
than the preceding, and necessitating a next more momentous 
than itself. The latter stages of his progress included an in¬ 
quiry into the evidence of the Resurrection, the miraculous 


THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 


387 


gifts ascribed to the early Church, the claims to credit of the 
Apostle Paul, and other topics, undeniably affecting the very 
essence of Christian evidence. Having traced the successive 
advances of his doubts, Mr. Newman, in a recapitulary “ Con¬ 
clusion, ” makes a solemn appeal to his readers, to say at what 
point he could have stopped, and to lay a finger distinctly on 
the place at which the guilt of his scepticism began. One by 
one he counts out the steps by which he had proceeded, and 
asks, “Was this the sinful one?’ , The whole effect of the 
appeal is certainly an impression that the series, if not an in¬ 
evitable sequence, is very difficult to break; and that, small 
as the beginnings were, they linked themselves, by close con¬ 
nection, with very momentous results. From this chapter 
our author cites a sentence or two, but in such a way as im¬ 
mediately to conjoin the small initial steps of doubt with the 
great ultimate conclusion, and to make it appear that Mr. 
Newman renounced Christianity because he could not make 
out the pedigree of Jesus to his satisfaction. The genealogi¬ 
cal difficulty is the only one which he quotes, and as to which 
Mr. Newman is permitted to speak for himself. Presenting 
this as a specimen, and suppressing all the rest, he says that he 
could have shown * this writer ” a course far better “ than, on 
account of difficulties such as these , to renounce Christianity ” ! 
His citation from Mr. Greg is introduced as follows: — 

“ Let another witness be heard; and in hearing him one 
might think that his words are an echo that has come softly 
travelling down, through sixteen centuries, from some field of 
blood, or some forum, or some amphitheatre, where Christian 
men were witnessing a good confession in the midst of their 
mortal agonies ! This witness is one who assures us that ‘ he 
can believe no longer, he can worship no longer; he has dis¬ 
covered that the creed of his early days is baseless, or falla¬ 
cious/ Yet he too takes up the Martyr Truth, that we 
must not lie to God.” — p. 91. 

Here, then, Mr. Greg (with concealment of his name) is 
represented as one who, by his own confession, can neither be¬ 
lieve nor worship any more. Turning to the preface of “ The 


388 


THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 


Creed of Christendom,” we find the following original to this 
quotation: — 

“ The pursuit of truth is easy to a man who has no human 
sympathies, whose vision is impaired by no fond partialities, 
whose heart is torn by no divided allegiance. To him the re¬ 
nunciation of error presents few difficulties; for the moment 
it is recognized as error, its charm ceases. But the case is 
very different with the Searcher whose affections are strong, 
whose associations are quick, whose hold upon the Past is 
clinging and tenacious. He may love Truth with an earnest 
and paramount devotion ; but lie, loves much else also. Pie 
loves errors, which were once the cherished convictions of his 
soul. He loves dogmas which were once full of strength and 
beauty to his thoughts, though now perceived to be baseless or 
fallacious. He loves the Church where he worshipped in his 
happy childhood; where his friends and his family worship 
still; where his gray-haired parents await the resurrection of 
the Just; but where lie can worship and await no more. He 
loves the simple old creed, which was the creed of his earlier 
and brighter days ; which is the creed of his wife and children 
still; but which inquiry has compelled him to abandon. The 
past and the familiar have chains and talismans which hold 
him back in his career, till every fresh step forward becomes 
an effort and an agony; every fresh error discovered is a 
fresh bond snapped asunder; every new glimpse of light is 
like a fresh flood of pain poured in upon the soul. To such 
a man the pursuit of Truth is a daily martyrdom, — how hard 
and bitter let the martyr tell. Shame to those who make it 
doubly so; honor to those who encounter it saddened, weep¬ 
ing, trembling, but unflinching still.”—p. xvi. 

Our author would snatch from Mr. Greg the right to say, 
we must not lie to God. Which has the better right to say, 
“ Thou shalt not lie to men ” ? 

The more ingenuously the modern Orthodoxy lays bare its 
essence, the more evident is it that a profound scepticism not 
only mingles with it, but constitutes its very inspiration. The 
dread of losing God, the impression that there is but one pa- 


THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 


389 


tent way, not of duty, but of thought, of meeting him, haunt 
the minds of men, driving some to Anglicanism to compensate 
defect of faith by excess of sacrament, some to Rome in 
quest of the Lord’s body, and prompting others to conserva¬ 
tive efforts of Bibliolatry, conducted with ever-decreasing 
reason and declining hope. We have seen, however, no such 
exemplification of this radical distrust as in the treatise before 
us. Already has the writer declared that the moral side of 
the universe sends in, with regard to religion, an empty re¬ 
port. And now he hastens to tell us that, on the physical side, 
the watchmen from every observatory of nature cry out, “ No 
God.” He represents the natural sciences as a huge Titanic, 
resistless mass of knowledge, perfectly demonstrable, and 
completely irreligious; descending, like a glacier, from the 
upper valleys of frozen thought; sure to scrape away the 
wild pine woods and the green fields of natural religion, yet 
considerate enough, for some reason unexplained, to spare the 
foundations of the village church. Designating every faith 
except his own by such phrases as “ theosophic fancies,” and 
“pietistic notions,” he assures us that they will all be put 
“ right out of existence ” by “ our modern physical sciences ” ; 
and he borrows from the “ Positive Philosophy ” (apparently 
by unconscious sympathy) the following maxim to justify his 
prediction: — 

“ In any case, when that which on any ground of proof takes 
full hold of the understanding, (such, for example, are the most 
certain of the conclusions of Geology,) stands contiguous to 
that which, in a logical sense, is of inferior quality, and is in¬ 
determinate, and fluctuating, and liable to retrogression, — in 
any such case there is always going on a silent encroachment 
of the more solid mass upon the ground of that which is less 
solid. What is sure will be pressing upon what is uncertain, 
whether or not the £wo are designedly brought into collision 
or comparison. What is well defined weighs upon, and 
against, what is ill defined. Nothing stops the continuous in¬ 
voluntary operation of Science in dislodging Opinion from 
the minds of those who are conversant with both. 

33 * 


390 


THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 


“ A very small matter that is indeed determinate, will be 
able to keep a place for itself against this incessantly en¬ 
croaching movement; but nothing else can do so. As to any 
of those theosophic fancies which we may wish to cling to, 
after we have thrown away the Bible, we might as well sup¬ 
pose that they will resist the impact of the mathematical and 
physical sciences, as imagine that the lichens of an Alpine 
gorge will stay the slow descent of a glacier.” — p. 97. 

Here it is alleged that Science and Opinion cannot coexist, 
— that the demonstrable will banish the probable. And be it 
observed, this is to take place, not simply where contradiction 
arises between the two orders of belief, but in all cases, from 
the mere distaste which quantitative studies produce towards 
everything which evades their rules. In this allegation there 
is, we believe, with much exaggeration, a certain small amount 
of truth, — a truth, however, which, so far from supporting 
our author’s plea against natural religion, offers it a conclusive 
refutation. It may be admitted that the exact and mixed sci¬ 
ences do disincline their votary to put trust in the processes 
by which judgments of probability are formed, and alienate 
him from thinkers who read off the meaning of the universe 
by another key than his. Accustomed to deal with Number 
and Space, with Motion and Force alone, — to reason upon 
them by a Calculus which is helpless beyond their range, — to 
exercise Faculties involving nothing beyond the interpretation 
of mensurative signs and the conception of relative magni¬ 
tudes, — he owes it to something else than his peculiar disci¬ 
pline, if he Fas either the instruments or the aptitudes for 
moral and philosophical reflection. He carries into the world, 
as his sole means of representing and solving its phenomena, 
the notion of physical necessity and linear sequence, secretly 
defining the universe to himself as Leibnitz defined an organ¬ 
ized being, — “a machine, whose smallest parts are also ma¬ 
chines,”— and naturally grows impatient when he finds him¬ 
self in fields of thought over which this narrow imagination 
opens no track. With respect, therefore, to a certain class of 
minds, rendered perhaps increasingly numerous by the long 


THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 


391 


neglect of the moral sciences in England, it may be quite true, 
that a spirit of utter disbelief towards everything beyond the 
range of necessary matter may more and more prevail. Let 
us further grant to our author, for the moment, three things 
assumed by him, all of them, however, false:—1. That this 
tendency of the “ demonstrable sciences ” is their only one 
having a bearing on “ theosophic systems.” 2. That it is so 
new , at least in degree, as to give “ opinion ” a worse chance 
for the future than it has had in the past. 3. That it is a good 
tendency, favorable to human knowledge and character. Still 
we must ask, How is the oracular authority of the Bible to 
escape the fate predicted for all probabilities ? Our author 
assures us that it will escape ; but he gives no faintest hint of 
a reason for so singular an exception to his own canon. It 
cannot be contended that the evidences of Christianity and 
Judaism belong to any of the “demonstrable” or “physical” 
sciences. It cannot be denied that they lie wholly within the 
limits of contingent knowledge, and terminate only in “ prob¬ 
abilities ”; that the authorship, for instance, of the fourth Gos¬ 
pel, the credibility of the introductory chapters of Matthew, 
the correctness of the prophecies about the second advent, are 
matters which, “ standing contiguous ” to the laws of refracted 
and reflected light, occupy the position of the less sure in rela¬ 
tion to the more sure; that the relative chronology of the 
Scripture books is more indeterminate than that of the geo¬ 
logic strata, and their actual dates more uncertain than those 
of the eclipses fatal to Nicias and to Perseus. What, then, is 
to exempt these judgments of verisimilitude from being pushed 
“ right out of existence ” by the “silent encroachment of the 
more solid mass ” of knowledge beside it ? Nothing can be 
plainer than that all testimonial knowledge whatsoever, all 
history, criticism, and art, the whole system of moral and 
political sciences, must fall under our author’s fatal sentence; 
and how the propositions which sustain the infallible authority 
of the canonical books are to hold their ground against the 
huge glacier on which Herschel, Airy and De Morgan, Comte 
and Leverrier, triumphantly ride, it is not easy to conceive. 


392 


THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 


Amid the universal crash of probabilities, may not the Mosaic 
tables of stone, broken once, be pulverized at last ? With the 
abrasion of all the alluvial soil in which the growths of won¬ 
der strike their roots, will the garden of Eden, will the 
blighted fig-tree, remain to mark a verdant and a barren spot 
in history ? Will these riding philosophers from their cold 
observatory find Paul’s “ third heaven ” ? May not their icy 
mountain slip into “ the abyss ” whence all the demons came, 
and fill it up ? These questions, indeed, are answered for us 
in experience. It is notorious that, whenever an unbounded 
devotion to science has produced a prevalent tendency to dis¬ 
belief, Revelation, so far from being spared, has been usually 
the first object of attack; and, both at the origin of modern 
science in the sixteenth century, and during its accelerated 
advance towards the close of the eighteenth, the widening 
conception of determinate Law was found to threaten nothing 
so decisively as the faith in supernatural dispensations. The 
greater scepticism includes the less ; and the habit of mind 
which lets slip all beliefs not legitimated by the canons of nat¬ 
ural science, cannot possibly retain Christianity. 

But our author has only half described the mental effect of 
studies purely scientific. They do not, in the nature of things 
they cannot , simply push out of the mind all contingent judg¬ 
ments. Human life and action are one continuous texture of 
such judgments, with some interweaving, no doubt, of math¬ 
ematic forms, which could not be picked out without spoiling 
the symmetry of its pattern; but were you to withdraw the 
threads of probable opinion, still more, to cut the warp of prim¬ 
itive assumptions that stretches through it, the web would .sim¬ 
ply fall to pieces. No youth can decide on a profession, no 
man appoint an agent in his business, no physician prescribe 
for a patient, no judge pronounce a sentence, no statesman an¬ 
swer a despatch, without a constant resort to “ surmises,” a 
reliance on slender indications, often even a deliberate adop¬ 
tion of very doubtful hypotheses. All men are driven from 
hour to hour into positions demanding combinations of thought 
which can be borrowed from no natural science; where not 


TIIE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 


393 


the laws of matter and motion, not the equilibrium of forces, 
not the properties of things, are chiefly concerned, but the 
feelings and faculties of persons, the action and reaction of 
human affairs. Mathematicians and natural philosophers, be¬ 
ing in no way exempt from these conditions, are obliged to 
have just as many 4t opinions ” and “ guesses ” as other men ; 
they* cannot, if they are to keep their footing on this world at 
all, have a smaller stock than their neighbors of this “ logically 
inferior” order of persuasions. They are unable to abdicate 
the necessity of having these persuasions ; and their only pe¬ 
culiarity is, that they sometimes import into contingent affairs 
the methods with which habit has rendered them familiar in 
another sphere, and so find the conditions of belief unsatisfied; 
and at others, from consciousness that their own clew will not 
serve, yet inaptitude for seizing a better, surrender themselves 
to the fortuitous guidance of ill-balanced faculties and exter¬ 
nal solicitations. Hence their judgments are frequently fan¬ 
tastic, frequently sceptical, — not less liable to be too easy from 
one cause than to be too reluctant from another; and were a 
history to be written of the most remarkable extravagances, 
positive as well as negative, by which religion and philosophy 
have sprung aside from the centre of common sense and feel¬ 
ing, it would contain more names of great repute in the exact 
sciences than from any other intellectual class whatever. From 
Pythagoras to Swedenborg, the eccentricities of mathemetical 
and physical imagination have been the chief disturbers of a 
natural and healthy faith. Harmonic theories of the universe, 
Ideal Numbers, Geometric Ethics, Rosicrucian fraternities, 
Vortices and Monads, Apocalyptic studies, New Jerusalems, 
and Electrobiological Metaphysics, have all borne testimony to 
the aberrant fancy of eminent proficients in the sciences. It 
is, therefore, far from being universally true, that disputable 
theosophies and conjectural systems of the universe are dis¬ 
tasteful to minds schooled in the “ demonstrable sciences.” If 
to men of this order we owe the successive dislodgement of one 
such hypothesis after another, to them also do we owe their 
continual reproduction. Whether the unsoundness of judg- 


394 


THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 


ment which is contracted in the absence of historical, moral, 
and metaphysical studies shall show itself in an excessive 
slowness or an excessive facility of belief, will depend on ac¬ 
cidents of personal character and social position. But of this 
we may be sure; — if the sceptical temper be the direction 
taken, the Bible will not be spared; if the credulous , “ the- 
osophic fancies ” will be copiously saved. 

Can there, after all, be a more paradoxical spectacle than 
that of a religious writer allying himself with the sceptical 
propensities of science, in order to get rid of gainsayers of 
the Bible ? It is the counterpart in logic of the Italian game 
in politics, — the Pope appealing to Parisian swords to drive 
out the Republic, and save the head of Christendom. Is it 
possible that our author can approve the agency which he thus 
invokes ? that he can really wish to see it in the intellectual 
ascendant, and garrisoning every sacred fortress of the world ? 
Does he remember what are the fundamental canons of its 
logic, — that we know nothing but Phenomena, — that Causa¬ 
tion is nothing but phenomenal priority, — or else, that Force 
is the prior datum of which Thought is a particular and pos¬ 
terior development? And what, on the other hand, are the 
u theosophic fancies ” against which he would plant this bar¬ 
baric artillery of Fate? They are such as these, — that our 
faculties give us trustworthy reports, not of phenomena only, 
but of their abiding ground, — Soul within, God without;— 
that the moral Law of Obligation in the one is the expression 
of Holy Will in the other; — that faithfulness in the Human 
mind to its highest aspirations, brings it into communion with 
the Divine; — that as the Soul is the free Image, so is Nature 
the determinate Handiwork of God. If these doctrines, 
spurned by our author with so rude a flippancy, were to sur¬ 
render to the hostility on which he relies, is he unaware of the 
character the conflict would assume, and of the dynasty of 
thought which would reign undisputed at the close ? Fight¬ 
ing by the side of such allies against “ theosophic fancies,” he 
may skirmish with the “ fancies,” but they will bear right down 
upon the “ Theism ” in the centre ; and when the day is over, 


THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 


395 


the standard they will plant upon the conquered towers will 
he, not the sacred dove he took into the field, and lost to the 
defeated foe, but their own blind black eagle of necessity. 
How strange is the perversion of instinctive sympathies, when 
a theologian disparages the sciences of reflection and self- 
knowledge, and takes his stand on the evidence of sense and 
measurement alone ! — when he proposes to sweep out beliefs 
that trouble him with their neighborhood, by a general crusade 
against all probabilities, — and when, with this design, he vio¬ 
lates the just balance of power among the kingdoms of human 
knowledge, and flatters, as if it were a virtue, the pretensions 
of a mental habit, which, out of its own province, is one of 
the most incapacitating, yet destructive, of intellectual vices ! 
There is, however, a certain secret affinity of feeling between 
.a Religion which exaggerates the functions and overstrains 
the validity of an external authority, and a Science which 
deals only with objective facts, perceived or imagined. The 
point of sympathy is found in a common distrust of every¬ 
thing internal, even of the very faculties (as soon as they are 
contemplated as such) by which the external is apprehended 
and received. And between this sort of faith and the math¬ 
ematics there is another analogy, which may explain so curi¬ 
ous a mutual understanding. Both rest upon hypotheses , 
which it is beyond their province to look into, but after the as¬ 
sumption of which, all room for opinion is shut out by a rigid 
necessity. Once get your infallible book, and (supposing the 
meaning unambiguous) it settles every matter on which it pro¬ 
nounces ; and once allow the first principles and definitions in 
geometry to express truths and realities, and you can deny 
nothing afterwards. It is the business of philosophy to go be¬ 
low the mathematics, and determine whether they are more 
than hypothetical science, — whether their assumptions are a 
mere play of subjective necessity, or are objectively trust¬ 
worthy. It is the business of both reflective philosophy and 
historical criticism to go below “the book,” and determine 
whether if has more than hypothetical infallibility, — whether 
the conditions, inner and outer, of such a claim, are or are not 


396 


THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 


satisfied. If even the Mathematics, which have little to fear 
from the investigation of their basis, have not been on the 
best terms with Metaphysics, it is hardly surprising that a 
Religion of mere external authority should feel antipathy for 
the studies which pry into its foundations, with the inevitable 
effect of showing that what is certainty above ground is opinion 
below. Nor is it wonderful that both sets of beliefs are fond 
of forgetting their hypothetical origin, contemplating only 
their acquired semblance of security, and speaking as if they 
disowned contingency altogether, and despised the detractors 
who could suspect such a taint in their blood. Hence the fel¬ 
low-feeling which occasionally unites a rigid theology, and an 
exclusive physical and mathematical science. It is founded 
on their joint antipathy to the sources of moral knowledge, — 
their common blindness to one half of human culture. Like 
all alliances resting on antipathy alone, it is neither honorable 
nor durable. It is the function of Religion to occupy a tran¬ 
quil seat above the contests of partial pursuits and narrow in¬ 
terests; as, in the world of action, to hold the balance of 
Right, so, in the world of intellect, to preserve the equities and 
the equilibrium of Truth; and her trust is betrayed by any 
one who flings himself, as her representative, into the civil 
wars of the sciences, and in her name signs away whole prov¬ 
inces of thought, and abandons them to outrage and confisca¬ 
tion as conquered lands. Human faith has nothing to fear 
from the unity and perfection of all the sciences; but much 
from the blind ambition of each one. It is from this persua¬ 
sion alone, and not from any defective appreciation of physical 
studies, that we have spoken freely of their tendency, when 
the mind is entirely enclosed within them. The undoubted 
source of inestimable blessings to mankind, and an indispen¬ 
sable element of culture to the individual, they are mischiev¬ 
ous only when they grow dizzy with success, and propound 
schemes of universal empire. The moment they undertake 
either to create or destroy a religion, the sign is unmistakable 
that this intoxicated ambition has begun to work. 

The relation of Religion to History our author appears to 


THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 


307 


us to conceive much more correctly than its relation to Science. 
On this great topic, however, our limits forbid us to enter. 
One remark only we will make. The author misconceives 
the objection of Theodore Parker and others to the ordinary 
doctrine of historical revelation. They do not, as he affirms, 
“ disjoin religion from history,” or in the least decline the 
“ travelling back to ages past ” on its account. It is not the 
presence of God in antiquity, but his presence only there, — 
not his inspiration in Palestine, but his withdrawal from every 
spot besides, — not even his supreme and unique expression 
in Jesus of Nazareth, but his absence from every other human 
medium, — against which these writers protest. They feel 
that the usual Christian advocate has adopted a narrow and 
even irreligious ground; that he has not found a satisfactory 
place in the Divine scheme of human affairs for the great 
Pagan world; that he has presumptuously branded all history 
but one as “ profane ”; that he has not only read it without 
sympathy and reverence, but has used it chiefly as a foil to 
show off the beauty of evangelic truth and holiness, and so 
has dwelt only on the inadequacy of its philosophy, the deform¬ 
ities of its morals, the degenerate features of its social life; 
that he has forgotten the Divine infinitude when he assumes 
that Christ’s plenitude of the Spirit implies the emptiness of 
Socrates. In their view, he has rashly undertaken to prove, 
not one positive fact, — a revelation of divine truth in Galilee, — 
but an infinite negative , — no inspiration anywhere else. To 
this negation , and to this alone, is their remonstrance addressed. 
They do not deny a theophany in the gift of Christianity; but 
they deny two very different things, viz.: — 1. That this is the 
only theophany; and, 2. That this is theophany alone ; — that 
is, they look for some divine elements elsewhere; and they look 
for some human here. It is not therefore a smaller, but a 
larger, religious obligation to history, which they are anxious 
to establish; and they remain in company with the Christian 
advocate, so long as his devout and gentle mood continues; 
and only quit him when he enters on his sceptical antipathies. 
This, in spite of every resistance from the rigor of the older 
34 


398 


THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. 


theology, is an inevitable consequence of the modern histor¬ 
ical criticism. Its large and genial apprehension opens for us 
new admirations, new sympathies, clearer insight into human 
realities, throughout the nations and ages of the past. It 
melts away from our ancient moral geography the ideal con¬ 
trasts of coloring which made the world the scene of an un¬ 
natural dualism, and reinstates the great families of man in 
unity. It is doing for our conception of the moral world what 
science has already done for our conception of the natural: it 
is expanding our notion of Divine agency within it. As, in 
reference to physical nature, w^ have learned to think that 
God did not enact creation but once, and cease; so are we be¬ 
ginning to perceive, in relation to the human mind and life, that 
he did not enter history only once, and quite exceptionally. 
Whoever opens his heart to this great thought will find in it, 
not the uneasiness of doubt, but the repose of faith. He will 
no longer fancy that, in order to keep Christianity as the 
divinest of all, he must fear to feel aught else divine. He 
will worship still at the same altar, and sing his hymn to the 
same strain; only with a richer chorus of consentient voices, 
and in a wider communion of faithful souls. 


ONE GOSPEL IN MANY DIALECTS, 


“ And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak in other 
tongues, according as the Spirit gave them utterance. And there were so¬ 
journing at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heav¬ 
en. Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together; and 
they were confounded because every one heard them speaking in his own 
language.” — Acts ii. 4-6. 

In that marvellous scene, the anniversary of which coin¬ 
cides on this Whitsunday with our Centenary, a question long 
pending between the Rabbis and the Holy Spirit came to an 
open issue. They were Aramaean scholars, and had their 
Kingdom of Heaven set forth in the best Hebrew, which, true 
enough, was of no great human currency, and not strictly a 
living tongue at all; but then had been distinguished by 
Divine use from the earliest time. Was it not in this that the 
Call had come to Abram ? and the promises been repeated to 
the Patriarchs? and the music been flung from the harp of 
David? and the burdens of inspiration been treasured on the 
Prophet’s scroll ? Who could quote a word that God had 
ever spoken in any other language ? It was the one sacred 
idiom, from which all others are divergent corruptions, and 
to which, when the world’s confusion is over, they must again 
return. However few in these decadent ages might under¬ 
stand it still, it was intrinsically fitted to be universal. And 
who could call that speech provincial, at whose sound the 
heavens and earth arose? or esteem it temporary, when it 



400 


ONE GOSPEL IN MANY DIALECTS. 


persevered through the dispersion at Babel, and was present 
on the world before the Flood ? So there must be nothing 
else allowed in the liturgies of the Synagogue, in the reading 
of Scripture, or in any intercourse between man and God. 
Only when men began to converse with one another , to com¬ 
pare their human thoughts, and descend from prophetic to di¬ 
dactic gifts, might they resort to the media of profaner life. 
The language of Worship was but one ; though the jargons of 
Opinion were many. And so the Scribes and the Rabbis of 
the written Word supposed themselves to hold the only key 
of life. 

But the Holy Spirit goes into no one’s keeping, and is no 
respecter of tongues. Free as the wind to blow where it list- 
eth, it sweeps wherever souls are genial to its breath, and will 
yield to it their gifts, of love, of lips, of life. It seemed to 
have had enough of Hebrew, ever since it had gone into the 
hands of the philologists, and been made a sacred language, 
and begun to drone. It had long been feeling its way in other 
directions, tempting men to pray out of the fresh heart, and 
never mind the words, till now at last the secret broke, that 
on any native tongue by which souls most freely flow together, 
may all pass out to God; that the home-sounds are the de- 
voutest too; that the speech into which men are born, and 
which has become to them as a stringed instrument answering 
to the faintest touch of their affections, is the true vehicle by 
which “the Spirit giveth utterance.” The prayer of faith, 
ascending in the idioms of every latitude, converges into one 
in heaven. And God’s truth, descending to this world, breaks 
into all the moulds of expression native to our various race. 

One Gospel in many dialects , — that is the great Pentecost 
lesson, construe the miracle as we may. And there are dia¬ 
lects of Thought as well as speech, — natural differences of 
temperament and character, — to which the Gospel, still with¬ 
out prejudice to its unity, adapts itself with the same divine 
flexibility. What private observer — still more what student 
of history — can doubt that we are not all made in the same 
mould, — that the proportions of our humanity are variously 


ONE GOSPEL IN MANY DIALECTS. 


401 


mixed,—that not only do we individually differ in moral sus¬ 
ceptibility and spiritual depth, but fall into permanent groups 
marked by distinct and ineradicable characters, and reprodu¬ 
cing the same religious tendencies from age to age ? Trans¬ 
pose the souls of Plato and Pascal into the right place and 
time, and do you suppose they would turn up as Latitudina- 
rian Divines ? Deal as you will with the lot of Priestley and 
Belsham, and could you ever enroll them among the Chris¬ 
tian Mystics ? Close in the fires of Augustine’s nature with 
what damps you may, and could you ever find him peace in a 
Gospel of Good Works ? No; we touch here on differences 
deeper than accident, and irremovable by culture, — differen¬ 
ces that vindicate their reality by crossing the lines of dissim¬ 
ilar religions and reappearing in all times. They necessarily 
give us differing wants and experiences ; they set into differ¬ 
ing shapes of faith; and on souls equally faithful they fix very 
differing expressions. They are so many vernacular idioms 
of the inner mind: all have divine right to be: no one of 
them is entitled to call itself the sacred language alone intel¬ 
ligible between man and God; and the pretension of any to 
supersede the rest, and reign alone, is not less vain than the 
complaints of ignorance against foreign dialects, and the am¬ 
bition to exchange the many running waters of local literature 
into the huge tank of a universal language. They may not 
be able to understand each other, or even with the key of 
outward comparison always bear translation into idioms other 
than their own. But let them speak in their own way, and 
pray their own prayer. Not only are they all clear to Him 
that readeth the heart; there will thus be more heart for Him 
to read: for faith and love, large as they may be, are ever 
deepest in their special tones; and the prayer, the hymn, 
which is touched with the spirit’s local coloring, comes to us 
like the aroma of native fields, and assuages our thirst like 
the sweet waters of some well given to our fathers and made 
sacred by a Saviour’s noonday rest. 

On this principle, — that different types of natural genius 
in men cannot but throw their Christianity into different forms, 
31 * 


402 


ONE GOSPEL IN MANY DIALECTS. 


— we may not only justify the divisions of Christendom, but 
even cease to wish that they should disappear. Unity no 
doubt there must be: God is one; Truth is one; the Gospel 
is one; and a mind that could take in the whole, and spread 
its insight and affections in all dimensions at once, would reach 
the Divine equilibrium, in which nothing partial preponderates. 
But from our watch-tower we can look through only one win¬ 
dow at once; the blind walls of our mental chamber shut out 
all the rest; and as we kneel, like Daniel, at the open light, 
the breeze upon our face seems sacred, because it comes from 
our Jerusalem. The question is not, whether there is such a 
thing as truth, rounded off, self-balanced, and complete; in the 
mind of God, — the final seat of reality, — of course there is. 
Nor is it a question, whether each individual man can attain 
a faith consistent in its parts, agreeable to fact, and adequate 
to his nature. This also is possible. But when he has at¬ 
tained it, on what terms is it to co-exist with other faiths pre¬ 
senting parallel pretensions ? Is he in his heart to identify 
his own with the absolute truth, sufficient for all as for him¬ 
self? Is he to expect them to come round to it, and altogeth¬ 
er throw away their own ? Or is he to confess to himself his 
own limitations, to suspect that he may have his blind sides, 
and reverently to seek something he has missed in that which 
others persist in seeing? In which direction is he to seek 
unity ? By antipathy to all beliefs save one ? — or by inviting 
all of them to live their life and show their place in human 
nature ? It is the genius of Romanism to seek unity by sup¬ 
pression ; of Protestantism, by free development; — of the for¬ 
mer, to protect the consistency it has ; of the latter, to press for¬ 
ward to one that it has not. Are we taunted with our “ Prot¬ 
estant variations”? Why, the more they are, the richer is 
our field of experience, the finer our points of comparison ; 
provided, however, th*it we hold fast to the noble trust in a 
Gospel of identity at bottom, and seek it rather in the relig¬ 
ious heart of all the churches, than in the theologic wisdom of 
our own. No man can proclaim the principle of “ One Gos¬ 
pel in many dialects ,” unless he is prepared to admit that his 


ONE GOSPEL IN MANY DIALECTS. 


403 


own faith is one of the dialects , and nothing more ; to presume 
a meaning in the others, however hid from him ; and while 
they remain to him a mere inarticulate jargon, to ascribe it 
sooner to his own incapacity than to their insignificance. 
When God’s truth, refracted on its entrance into our nature, 
shall emerge into the white light again, not one of these 
tinted beams can be spared. Let us for a moment arrest and 
examine them. Let us look at the chief varieties which 
Christianity assumes as it penetrates the soul; at once recog¬ 
nizing our own place, and appreciating that of others. 

There are three great types of natural mind on which the 
Spirit of Christ may fall; and each, touched and awakened by 
him, “ utters the wonderful works of God ” in a language of 
its own. 

(1.) There is the Ethical mind, calm, level, and clear; 
chiefly intent on the good-ordering of this life; judging all 
things by their tendency to this end; and impatient of every 
oscillation of our nature that swings beyond it. There is 
nothing low or unworthy in the attachment which keeps this 
spirit close to the present world, and watchful for its affairs. 
It is not a selfish feeling, but often one intensely social and 
humane; not any mean fascination with mere material inter¬ 
ests, but a devotion to justice and right, and an assertion of 
the sacred authority of human duties and affections. A man 
thus tempered deals chiefly with this visible life and his com¬ 
rades in it, because, as nearest to him, they are the better 
known. He plants his standard on the present, as on a van¬ 
tage-ground, where he can survey his field, and manoeuvre all 
his force, and compute the battle he is to fight. Whatever his 
bearing towards fervors beyond his range, he has no insensibil¬ 
ity to the claims that fall within his acknowledged province, 
and that appeal to him in the native speech of his humanity. 
He so reverences veracity, honor, and good faith, as to expect 
them like the daylight, and hear of their violation with a flush 
of scorn. His word is a rock, and he expects that yours will 
not be a quicksand. If you are lax, you cannot hope for his 
trust; but if you are in trouble, you easily move his pity. 


404 


ONE GOSPEL IN MANY DIALECTS. 


And the sight of a real oppression, though the sufferer be no 
ornamental hero, but black, unsightly, and disreputable, suf¬ 
fices perhaps to set him to work for life, that he may expunge 
the disgrace from the records of mankind. Such men as he 
constitute for our world its moral centre of gravity ; and who¬ 
ever would compute the path of improvement that has brought 
it thus far on its way, or trace its sweep into a brighter future, 
must take account of their steady mass. 

The effect of this style of thought and taste on the religion 
of its possessor is not difficult to trace. It may , no doubt, 
stop short of avowed and conscious religion altogether; its 
basis being simply moral, and its scene temporal, its conditions 
may be imagined as complete, without any acknowledgment 
of higher relations. But, practically, this is an exceptional 
case. A deep and reverential sense of Moral Authority 
passes irresistibly into Faith in a Moral Governor ; and Con¬ 
science, as it rises, culminates in Worship. And to such nat¬ 
ural religion, the hearty reception of the revealed Gospel is 
so congenial a sequel, that Christianity has enlisted its chief 
body-guard — its band of Immortals — from the writers of 
this school. In the form which they give to the faith, they 
are true to themselves, still keeping close to the human, and, 
except to sanction and glorify this, not apt to dwell upon the 
Divine. The second table of commandment has more reality 
to them than the first; and the whole of religion presents it¬ 
self to their mind under the idea of Law. God in Christ 
teaches us his Will; publishes the punishment and the re¬ 
ward ; and requires our obedience; aiding us in it by the 
perfect example of Christ, and reassuring us under failure by 
the offer of pardon on repentance. Now this is a true Gos¬ 
pel ; not a proposition of it can be gainsaid; and whoever from 
his heart can repeat this creed, — God is holy ; morality, di¬ 
vine ; penitence, availing; goodness, immortal; guilt, secure 
of retribution ; and Christ, our pattern for both lives, — is not 
far from the kingdom of Heaven, and has a faith as much 
beyond the practice, as it is short of the professions, of the 
great mass of Christians. If he has an equable, rational, and 


ONE GOSPEL IN MANY DIALECTS. 


405 


balanced nature ; if he can depend on himself, and reduce his 
will to the discipline of rules; if he have affections temper¬ 
ate enough to follow reason instead of lead it, and to love God 
by sense of fitness and word of command; if moral prudence 
is so strong in him that he can bear the idea of “ doing good 
for the sake of everlasting happiness ” ; if no wing ever beats 
in his soul that takes him off his feet; — his wants are provid¬ 
ed ; he has guidance for the problems that will meet him on 
his way, — indications of duty, — grounds of trust,— and a 
path traced through every Gethsemane and Calvary of this 
world, to the saintly peace of another. 

But while this is a true Gospel , is it the whole Gospel ? Not 
so; unless the voice of the Saviour is to reach only a part of 
our humanity, and in response draw but a “ little flock.” For 
not many of our race are made of this even and unfermenting 
clay. Who can deny that there abound, — and among the 
greatest names of Christian history, — 

(2.) Passionate natures, that cannot thus work out their own 
salvation , but ever pray to be taken whither of themselves they 
cannot go? It is not that they are necessarily weak of will, 
deficient in self-control, and unequal to the human moralities. 
Rather is it, that they get through all these, and yet can find 
no peace. Duty, as men measure it, may be satisfied; but 
still the face of God does not lift up its light. For want of 
that answering look, it is all as the tillage of the black desert; 
digging by night without a heaven above, and sowing in sands 
which no dew shall fertilize. Intense and effectuating resolve 
was certainly not wanting in Luther; what his young con¬ 
science imposed, his will achieved, — wasting asceticism, per¬ 
severing devotion, humble charities ; yet the shadow of death 
brooded around his irreproachable obedience. Is it not that 
the same sorrow which, in more level minds, is brought by a 
fall of the will, arises in these men from the ascent of their 
aspirations ? Haunted by the image of God’s Holiness , drawn 
to it, yet fluttering helplessly at immeasurable depths below 
it, they strain after an obedience they cannot reach, and never 
lose the sense of infinite failure. Measured by their aims, 


406 


ONE GOSPEL IN MANY DIALECTS. 


their power is nothing. Did the law of Christ require nothing 
but works which the hand could do, its conditions would be 
finite, and might be satisfied. But its claims sweep through 
the affections of the soul; and who can make himself love 
where he is cold? who set himself behind his own thoughts, 
and keep guilty intruders outside the door of his nature ? Im¬ 
possible ! the inner life, which is the special seat of our divine 
concerns, evades our laboring prudence, and tortures con¬ 
science without obeying it. How then do these sufferers find 
their emancipation ? They have a Gospel, according to which 
Christ is not given as the Teacher of Law, but set up as the 
personal object of pure Trust and Love. God sent his Son 
in the likeness of sinful flesh, to mitigate the Divine into gen¬ 
tleness, to elevate the Human into holiness, and show how 
there is one moral perfection for both; surrendered him to 
humiliation and self-sacrifice; placed him in heaven; and of¬ 
fered to accept pure faith and love towards him as the recon¬ 
ciling term for the human soul, — as the substitute for an 
unattainable ideal of obedience. Here then is the salvation 
of these passionate natures. This simple trust, this intense 
affection, is precisely what they have to give. They cannot 
direct themselves; but only fix their love, and you may lead 
them as a child. Self-discipline is impossible ; self-escape tri¬ 
umphant. Try from within to hold the struggling winds of 
their nature with iron bands of law, and you do but stir the 
sleeping storms. Set in the heavens without an orb of divine 
attraction, — a new star in the East, — and you carry their 
whole atmosphere away. Engage their faith; and for the 
first time they will prevail over their work. Let there be an 
appeal of Grace to their enthusiasm, — a whispered word, 
“ Lovest thou me ? ” — and the very burden that was too heavy 
to be borne loses all its weight; and the drudging mill of 
habit, that seemed so servile once, they pace with songs and 
joy. There are men who so need to be thus carried out of 
themselves, that without it their nature runs to waste, or burns 
away with self-consuming fires. They are like one who, in a 
dream, should set himself to climb a far-off mountain-top; if 


ONE GOSPEL IN MANY DIALECTS. 


407 


he tries to run, he cannot even creep, and only wakes himself 
to find that he lies still on the bed of nature. But if the 
thought of his mind should be, that an overmastering power 
— chariot of fire and horses of fire — lifts him away, he 
floats through the clear space, till, without effort, his feet stand 
upon the visionary hills. 

Here then, again, — in this doctrine of Faith, — we have a 
true Gospel, speaking to many hearts impenetrable by the 
doctrine of Works. But have we even yet the whole Gos¬ 
pel ? Has the Good Shepherd, in these two words, made his 
voice known to all that are his ? Or are there other sheep 
still to be gathered that are not of these folds? I believe 
there are. For thus far we have looked only at the moral side 
of Christian doctrine, at its different answers to the problem 
of Sin, — at the conditions of ultimate acceptance with God, 
notwithstanding deep unworthiness. Whether you say, Pa¬ 
tiently obey, and you shall grow into perfection of faith and 
love ; or, Fling yourself on faith and love, and you will find 
grace for patient obedience; — in either case you are prescrib¬ 
ing terms of salvation; you have the future life specially in 
mind, and are anxious to make ready the soul there to meet 
her God. But there are persons who cannot fix any partic¬ 
ular solicitude upon,that crisis, as if all before were probation, 
and all after were judgment, — as if here were only faith in 
an absent, and there sight of a present God; — who cannot 
dramatically divide existence into a two-act piece, first Time, 
then Eternity, and wait for the Infinite Presence, till the cur¬ 
tain rises between them; but are haunted by the feeling that, 
as Time is in Eternity, so is Man already shut up in God. 
This is the indigenous sentiment of another natural type of 
mind, which may be called, — 

(3.) The Spiritual. God is a Spirit; man has a spirit; 
both, Now; both, Here ; and shall they never meet ? shall 
they remain without exchange of looks ? shall nothing break 
the seal of eternal silence ? is there really love between them, 
and thought, and purpose, and yet all recognition dumb? 
Why tell us of God’s Omniscience, if it only sleeps around us 


408 


ONE GOSPEL IN MANY DIALECTS. 


like dead space, or at most lies watching, like a sentinel of 
the universe, not free to stir ? Who could ever pray to this 
motionless Immensity ? who weep his griefs to rest on a Pity 
so secret and reserved ? Surely if He is a Living Mind, he 
not merely remains over from a Divine Past to appear again 
in a Divine Future, but moves through the immediate hours, 
and awakens a thousand sanctities to-day. Urged by such 
questionings as these, men of meditative piety have thirsted 
for conscious communion with the All-holy ; — communion both, 
ways : appeal and response; a crossing line of light from eye 
to eye; a quiet walk with God, where all the dust of life 
turns, at his approach, into the green meadow, and its flat 
pools into the gliding waters. They have retired within to 
meet him; have believed that all is not ours that it is ours to 
feel; that there is Grace of his mingling with the inner fibres 
of our nature, and flinging in, across the constant warp of our 
personality, flying tints of deeper beauty, and hints of a pat¬ 
tern more divine. And all have agreed, that, in order to reach 
this Holy Spirit, and through its vivifying touch be born 
again, the one thing needful is a stripping off of self, an aban¬ 
donment of personal desire and will, a return to simplicity, 
and a docile listening to the whispers spontaneous from God. 
They find all sin to be a rising up of self; all return to holi¬ 
ness and peace a sinking down from self, a free surrender of 
the soul, — that asks nothing, possesses nothing, that relaxes 
every rigid strain, and is pliant to go whither the highest Will 
may lead. Nature, of her own foolishness, ever goes astray 
in her quest of divine things; wandering away in flights of 
laboring Reason to find her God; panting with over-plied 
resolve to do her work; scheming rules, and artifices, and 
bonds of union for forming her individuals into a Church. 
Reverse all this, and fall back on the centre of the Spirit, in¬ 
stead of pressing out in all radii of your own. Let Intellect 
droop her ambitious wing, and come home; there, in the in¬ 
most room of conscience, God seeks you all the while. Lash 
your wearied strength no more; sit low and weak upon the 
ground, with loving readiness hitherward or thitherward, and 


ONE GOSPEL IN MANY DIALECTS. 


409 


you shall be taken through your work with a sevenfold strength 
that has no effort in it. Leave yourself awhile in utter soli¬ 
tude, shut out all thoughts of other men, yield up whatever 
intervenes, though it be the thinnest film, between your soul 
and God; and in this absolute loneliness, the germ of a holy 
society will of itself appear, a temper of sympathy and mercy, 
trustful and gentle, suffuses itself through the whole mind: 
though you have seen no one, you have met all; and are girt 
for any errand of service that love may find. So then, if 
there were twenty or a thousand in this case, their wills would 
flow together of their own accord, and find themselves in 
brotherhood without a plan at all. 

So speaks this doctrine of the Spirit. It matters not now 
under which of its many theologic forms we conceive it; sim¬ 
plest perhaps, that the Indwelling God, who in Christ was the 
Word, is in us the Comforter. But surely, this also is not 
altogether a false Gospel. It rescues the conception of direct 
communion between the human spirit and the Divine, — a 
conception essential to the Christian life, — which an Ethical 
Gospel does not adequately secure: for communion must be 
between like and like, while obedience may be from slave to 
lord, nay, in some sense, from machine to maker. Nor is it 
a slight thing to take the scales from our eyes that hide from 
us the sanctities of our immediate life; to abolish the post¬ 
ponement of eternity ; and, wayfarers as we are, make us feel, 
as we rise from our stony pillow and pass on, that here is the 
abode of God, and here does the angel-ladder touch the 
ground! Yet this too is not the whole Gospel. It absorbs 
too much in God. It scarcely saves human personality and 
responsibility. It does no justice to nature, which it regards 
as the negative of God. It melts away Law in Love, and 
hides the rocky structure of this moral world in a sunny haze 
that confuses earth and air. 

What, then, shall we say of these three types of Christian 
faith? Do you doubt their reality? It is demonstrated 
within the century which we close this day. For while our 
forefathers were dedicating this house of prayer to the first 
35 


410 


ONE GOSPEL IN MANY DIALECTS. 


the Gospel of Christian Duty, Wesley had already become 
the prophet of the last, — the new birth of the Spirit; and 
erelong Evangelicism started up, and proclaimed the second, 
— the Salvation by Faith. Do you doubt their durability 
and permanence ? It is proved by eighteen centuries’ expe¬ 
rience, for the New Testament is not older. There, within 
the group of sacred books themselves, do they all lie ; the Jew¬ 
ish Gospels represent the first; the Gentile Apostle’s letters, 
the second; the writings of the beloved disciple, the third. 
Matthew, as every reader must remark,is for the Law; Paul, 
for Faith ; and John, for the Spirit. And, in every age, the 
great mass of Christian tendencies break themselves into these 
three forms:— Ebionite, Pauline, and contemplative Gnostic; 
Pelagian, Augustinian, and Mystic; Jesuit, Jansenist, and 
Quietist; Arminian, Lutheran, and Quaker; all proclaim the 
perseverance of the same essential types, wherever the spirit 
of Christ alights upon the various heart of man. 

Is Christ then divided? Is he not equal to the whole of 
our humanity ? Bather let us say, that we are small and 
weak for the measure of his heavenly wisdom. Doubtless, if 
we take what we can hold, and put it to faithful application, 
we have grace enough for every personal exigency. But 
there is, surely, an evil inseparable from all partial develop¬ 
ments of religion, which only satisfy the immediate cravings 
of the mind, and leave parts of our nature — asleep perhaps 
at the moment — liable to wake and thirst again. Such sep¬ 
arate growths run out their resources and exhaust themselves 
in a few generations. At first, they answer to some felt want; 
they collect a congenial multitude, and open to them a spir¬ 
itual refuge that ends their wanderings. But the sentiment, 
once brought into a contented state, ceases to be importunate 
and prominent; and by its abatement gives opportunity for 
other feelings to vindicate their existence. When the wound 
is bound up and has lost its smart, the natural hunger begins 
to tell. The children grow up other than the fathers, perhaps 
quite as limited, only in different ways, — with affections 
pressing into just the vacant places of an earlier age. Mean- 


ONE GOSPEL IN MANY DIALECTS. 411 

while, the imperfection of the original basis has provoked 
reactions equally of narrow scope, — equally incapable of 
permanently filling the capacities of the Christian mind. 
Hence the danger, if the separate veins of thought be still 
worked on as they thin away, that the sects should degener¬ 
ate into poor theological egotisms, and wear themselves in¬ 
sensibly out. It cannot be denied that all the three religious 
movements of the last century — represented by Taylor, by 
Wesley, by Cowper — exhibit the symptoms of spent strength, 
and are little likely to play again the part they have played 
before. 

Yet every one of their Gospels is true at heart; and the 
tree that holds that pith is a tree of life, which the Eternal 
husbandman hath planted; and if he prune it, it is only that 
it may bear more fruit. The weakness of these faiths is in 
their isolation ; and if their sap could but mingle, if no ele¬ 
ment were lost which they can draw from the root of the 
vine, a young frondescent life would show itself again. Those 
who think that the future can only repeat the past, will deem 
this impossible; though least of all should it appear so to us 
who profess ourselves “ Christians and only Christians” 
pledged to nothing but to lie open to all God’s truth. For 
myself I indulge a joyful hope that the next century of Chris¬ 
tendom will be nobler than the last; that the great Faiths 
which have struggled separately into the light of the one, will 
flow together on the broader and less broken surface of the 
other. If, however, this is to be, it will arise from no mere 
intellectual scrutiny, whose function will ever be to distin¬ 
guish , and not to unite , and, in proportion as it dominates 
alone, to trace ever-new lines of critical divergency. When 
the problem of Christendom is, to deliver the individual mind 
from the operation of an overwhelming social power, then it 
is seasonable to insist on the principle of free inquiry; be¬ 
cause then you have a dead mass to disintegrate, ere any 
young and living force can urge its way. But when you have 
won this victory, and when individualism ceases to be devout 
and tends to party self-will, the hour comes to proclaim the 


412 


ONE GOSPEL IN MANY DIALECTS. 


converse lesson, and break up the vain reliance on mere liberty 
of thought. Depend upon it, Unity lies in profounder strata 
of our nature than any tillage of the mere intellect can reach. 
Sink deeply into the inmost life of any Christian faith, and 
you will touch the ground of all. Did we do nothing with 
our religion except live by it; did we forget the presence of 
doubt and contradiction; did it cease to be a creed about 
God and become simply an existence in God ; did we ex¬ 
change self-assertion before men for self-surrender to him ; — 
we should find ourselves side by side with unexpected friends, 
should be astonished at our petulant divisions, and replace 
the poor charity of mutual forbearance by the free conscious¬ 
ness of inward sympathy. For us especially, who feel the 
temptations of an exceptional position, is it the prime duty to 
live and move and have our being in the divine sanctities that 
hold us, in that which we have not been obliged to throw 
away ; else might our Gospel be no fruit-bearing branch, 
drinking from the root of the vine, but a dead residuum, with¬ 
ered and hopeless. Remember that, if Sin be not original , 
all the more must it be actual , and the deeper should its 
shadow lie upon the Conscience, and touch us with the mood 
of faithfulness and prayer. If, in reconciling man with God, 
there is no vicarious sacrifice possible, so much the more re¬ 
mains over for self-sacrifice > as the only path of communion 
and peace. If you will have it that Christ is only human , so 
much the more Divine is your humanity to be; you cannot 
assume that as the type of your nature, without at least own¬ 
ing that its essence lies, and its glory is found, not in the nat¬ 
ural man, but in the spiritual man; and by this very con¬ 
fession, you renounce the low aims of the worldly mind, and 
take on yourself the vows of the saintly. Let believers only 
be true to the grace they have, and more will be given ; and 
enter where they may the many-gated sanctuary of the Chris¬ 
tian life, they will tend ever inwards to the same centre, and 
meet at last in the holiest of all. Keeping a reverent eye 
fixed on the person and spirit of Christ, they cannot but find 
their partial apprehensions corrected and enlarged; for his 


ONE GOSPEL IN MANY DIALECTS. 


413 


divine image is complete in its revelation, and rebukes every 
narrower Gospel. Moral perfectness, divine communion, 
free self-sacrifice, — all blend in him, — indistinguishable ele¬ 
ments of one expression. In that august and holy presence, 
our divisions sink abashed, and hear, as of old, the word of 
recall, “Ye know not what spirit ye are of.” Or if, through 
our infirmities, that gracious form, appearing in the midst as 
we discourse among ourselves and are perplexed and sad, do 
not suffice to open our eyes and make us less slow of heart 
to one another and to him, at least in that higher world, 
whither our forerunners are gone, his living look will perfect 
the communion of saints. There at length the guests of his 
bounty will find that, though at separate tables, they have all 
been fed by the same bread of life, and touched their lips 
with the same wine of remembrance: there, the voices of the 
wise, often discordant here, — of Taylor and Wesley, of En¬ 
field and Cowper, of Heber and Channing, — will blend in 
harmony; — and the notes of the last age will not be the 
least in that mighty chorus which crowds the steps of eigh¬ 
teen centuries, and, converging to their immortal Head, sings 
the solemn strain, “ Great and marvellous are thy works, 
Lord God Almighty! Just and true are all thy ways, thou 
King of Saints ! ” 


35 * 


ST. PAUL AND HIS MODERN STUDENTS. 


The Life and Epistles of St. Paul. By the Rev. W. J. 
Conybeare, M.A., late Fellow of Trinity College, Cam¬ 
bridge ; and the Rev. J. S. Howson, M.A., Principal of 
the Collegiate Institution, Liverpool. 2 vols. 4to. Long¬ 
mans. 1852. 

The Epistles of St. Paul to the Corinthians: with Critical 
Notes and Dissertations. By Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, 
M.A., Canon of Canterbury, late Fellow and Tutor of 
University College, Oxford, &c. 2 vols. 8vo. Murray. 

1855. 

The Epistles of St. Paul to the Thessalonians, Galatians, 
Romans: with Critical Notes and Dissertations. By 
Benjamin Jowett, M.A., Fellow and Tutor of Balliol 
College, Oxford. 2 vols. 8vo. Murray. 1855. 

These treatises, bearing on their title-pages the names of 
our two ecclesiastical Universities, give happy signs of a new 
era in English theology. They shew how effectually we 
have escaped from the morbid religious phenomena repre¬ 
sented by Simeon at Cambridge, and the counter-irritants 
applied by John Henry Newman at Oxford; and come as the 
returning breath of nature to those who have witnessed the 
fevers of “ Evangelical ” conversion or the consumptive as¬ 
ceticism of “Anglican” piety. On looking back, from the 
position now attained, it seems wonderful that we could ever, 



ST. PAUL AND IIIS MODERN STUDENTS. 


415 


with St. Paul’s writings in our hands, have been betrayed into 
either of these opposite extravagances : for anything more 
absolutely foreign to his breadth and universality than the 
Genevan dogma, or more at variance with his free spiritual¬ 
ity than the sacramental system, it is impossible to conceive. 
But it is the peculiar fate of sacred writings, that the last 
thing elicited from them is their own real meaning. The 
very greatness of their authority puts the reader’s faculties 
into a false attitude ; creates an eagerness, — an inflexible 
intensity, — that defeats its own end; and, in particular, gives 
undue ascendency to the uppermost want and feeling that 
may be craving satisfaction. Hence the tendency of Scrip¬ 
tural interpretation to proceed by action and reaction; an 
easy ethical Arminianism being succeeded by a severe Cal¬ 
vinism, and the reliance on individual grace giving way be¬ 
fore the advance of sacerdotal and Church ideas. When the 
opposite errors have spent themselves, the requisite repose of 
mind will be recovered for reading just the thought that lies 
upon the page: here and there an eye will be found, neither 
strained with pre-occupying visions, not scared by sceptic 
shadows, but clear for the apprehension of reality, as God has 
shaped it for our perception. At length we have reached 
this crisis of promise; and critics are found who, instead of 
interrogating St. Paul on all sorts of modern questions, listen 
to him on his own; and draw from him, not a fancied verdict 
on the sixteenth century, but a faithful picture of the first. 

And for this historical purpose, the writings of the great 
Gentile Apostle are of paramount value, and justly occupy 
the inquirer’s first researches. The most considerable of 
them are of unimpeachable authenticity. They are the very 
earliest Christian writings we possess. They are the pro¬ 
ductions of a man more clearly known to us than any of the 
first missionaries of the Gospel. They are letters: abounding 
in disclosures of personal feelings, of biographical incident, of 
changing moods of thought, of outward and inward conflict. 
They are addressed to young communities, scattered over a 
vast area, and composed of differing elements; and exhibit 


416 


ST. PAUL AND HIS MODERN STUDENTS. 


the whole fermentation of their new life, the scruples, the 
heart-burnings, the noble inspirations, the grievous factions, 
of the Apostolic age. The Gospels and the Book of Acts 
treat no doubt of a prior period, but proceed from a posterior, 
of whose state of mind, whose retrospective theories concern¬ 
ing the ministry of Christ, it is of primary importance to the 
criticism of the Evangelists that we should be informed; and 
on these points the Pauline Epistles are the indispensable 
groundwork of all our knowledge or conjecture. In them we 
catch the Christian doctrine and tradition at an earlier stage 
than any other canonical book represents throughout. Al¬ 
though the narratives of the New Testament doubtless abound 
in material drawn faithfully from a more primitive time, they 
are certainly not free from the touch and tincture of the post- 
Pauline age. How powerful an instrument the Apostle’s 
letters may become for either confirming or checking the 
historical records, may be readily conceived by every reader 
of Paley’s “ Horse Paulinas.” In fine, if it be a just princi¬ 
ple, in historical criticism, to proceed from the more known 
to the less known, — to begin from a date that yields con¬ 
temporary documents, and work thence into the subjacent and 
superjacent strata of events, — the elucidation of Christian 
antiquity must take its commencement from the Epistles of 
St. Paul. 

Except in its general similarity of subject, the first of the 
three works mentioned at the head of this article admits of 
no comparison with the other two. It is rather an illustrated 
guide-book to the Apostle’s world of place and time, than a 
personal introduction to himself. The authors are highly 
accomplished and scholarly men, and could not fail, in dealing 
with an historical theme, to bring together and group with 
conscientious skill a vast store of archaeological and topo¬ 
graphical detail; to weigh chronological difficulties with pa¬ 
tient care ; to translate with philological precision, and due 
aim at accuracy of text. They have accordingly produced a 
truly interesting and instructive book: so instructive, indeed, 
that by far the greater part of its information would, probably, 


ST. PAUL AND IIIS MODERN STUDENTS. 


417 


have been quite new to St. Paul himself. His life seems to 
us to be injudiciously overlaid with what is wholly foreign to 
it, and for the sake of picturesque effect to be set upon a stage 
quite invisible to him. He was not “ Principal of a Collegiate 
Institution,” accustomed to examine boys in Attic or Latian 
geography ; was not familiar with Thucydides or Grote ; was 
indifferent to the Amphictyonic Council; and, in the vicin¬ 
ity of Salamis and Marathon, probably read the past no 
more than a Brahmin would in travelling over Edgehill or 
Marston Moor. The world of each man must be measured 
from his own spiritual centre, and will take in much less in 
one direction, much more in another, than is spread beneath 
his eye. He cannot be reached by geographical approaches. 
You may determine the elements of his orbit, and yet miss 
him after all. It is an illusory process to paint the ancient 
world as it would look to an Hellenic gentleman then, or a 
university scholar now; and then think how St. Paul would 
feel in passing through it to convert it. The indirect influ¬ 
ence of this kind of conception seems to us apparent both in 
Mr. Conybeare’s translation and Mr. Howson’s narrative and 
descriptions. The outward scene and conditions of the Apos¬ 
tle’s career are elaborately displayed; but more with the 
modern academic than with the old Hebrew tone of coloring; 
and the English version, scrupulous and delicate as it is, has, 
to our taste, a general flavor quite different from the original 
Greek. Unconsciously entangled in the classifications and 
symbols of the Protestant theology, the authors are detained 
outside the real genius and feeling of the Apostle. 

Of a far higher order are the other two works, — produced, 
we infer from their numerous correspondences of both form 
and substance, not without concert between the authors. In¬ 
deed, the same explanation of the merits of Lachmann’s text 
(printed without translation by Mr. Stanley, and with the 
adapted authorized version by Mr. Jowett) is made to serve 
for both. So clearly and compendiously is this explanation 
drawn, that, in the next edition of Lachmann, Mr Jowett’s 
introduction might usefully be annexed to the great critic’s 


418 


ST. PAUL AND HIS MODERN STUDENTS. 


rather tangled and awkward preface. Of the superior fidelity 
of this recension, we think no habitual reader of the Greek 
Scriptures can reasonably doubt; and the recognition of its 
authority fulfils a prior condition of all scientific theology. 
The text being chosen on grounds purely critical, the notes 
are written in a spirit purely exegetical; they aim, simply 
and with rare self-abnegation, to bring out, by every happy 
change of light and turn of reflective sympathy, the great 
Apostle’s real thought and feeling. How very far this faith¬ 
ful historic purpose in itself raises the interpreter above the 
crowd of erudite and commenting divines, can scarcely be 
understood till it has formed a new generation, and fixed it¬ 
self as a distinct intellectual type. It is not, however, an 
affair of mere will and disposition; but, like most of the 
higher exercises of veracity, comes into operation only as the 
last result of mental tact and affluence. With the most 
honest intentions towards St. Paul, a critic without psycho¬ 
logical insight and dialectic pliancy, without power of melting 
down his modern abstractions and redistributing them in the 
moulds of the old realistic thought, — a critic without en¬ 
trance into the passionate depths of human nature, — a critic 
pre-occupied by Catholic or Protestant assumptions, and un¬ 
trained to imagine the questions and interests of the first age, 
— cannot surrender himself to the natural impression of the 
Apostle’s language. The disciple and the master are, in such 
case, at cross-purposes with one another; the questions put 
are not the questions answered; the interlocutors do not really 
meet, but wind in a maze about each other’s loci , not to end 
till the unconscious interpreter has set his fantasies within 
the shadow of inspiration. No such blind chase is possible 
to our authors. They have achieved the conditions of fidelity; 
and bring to a task, in which the truthful and sagacious spirit 
of Locke had already fixed the standard high, the ampler 
resources of modern learning, and more practised habit of 
historic combination. In the distribution of their work, the 
difference of natural genius between the two authors has per¬ 
haps been consulted, and is, at all events, distinctly expressed. 


ST. PAUL AND IIIS MODERN STUDENTS. 


419 


Mr. Stanley’s aptitude for reproducing the image of the past, 
his apprehensive sympathy with the concrete and individual 
elements of the world, fitly engage themselves with the com¬ 
posite forms of Corinthian society, and the most personal, 
various, and objective of the Apostle’s letters. For the more 
speculative Epistles to the Galatians and the Romans, there 
was need of Mr. Jowett’s philosophical depth and subtilty. 
The strictness with which he restrains these seductive gifts to 
the proper business of the interpreter, is not less admirable 
than their occasional happy application. Instead of being 
employed to force upon the Apostle a logical precision foreign 
to his habit, they are chiefly'engaged in detecting and wip¬ 
ing out false niceties of distinction drawn by later theology, 
and throwing back each doctrinal statement into its original 
degree of indeterminateness. It is not in the notes, — which 
are wholly occupied in recovering St. Paul’s own thought, — 
but in the interposed disquisitions, which avowedly deal with 
the theology of to-day, that a certain breadth and balance of 
statement, and delicate ease in manoeuvring the forms and 
antitheses of abstract thought, and fine appreciation of human 
experience, make us feel the double presence of metaphysical 
power and historical tact. The author, accordingly, appears 
to us, not only to have seized the great Apostle’s attitude of 
mind more happily than any preceding English critic, but 
also to have separated the essence from the accidents of the 
Pauline Christianity, and disengaged its divine elements for 
transfusion into the organism of our immediate life. Mr. 
Stanley appears to have more difficulty in unreservedly ad¬ 
hering to the purely historical view, and clerically flutters, 
without clear occasion, on the outskirts of “ edification ” ; — 
the critic in his notes, the preacher in his paraphrase; conced¬ 
ing in act more readily than in name, and apologizing for find¬ 
ing human ingredients in the Apostles and their doctrines, as 
if it were he, and not God , that would have them there. This 
tendency to blur the lines which he himself draws between 
the temporary and the permanent in the Scriptures with 
which he deals, is the only fault we can find with Mr. Stan- 


420 


ST. PAUL AND IIIS MODERN STUDENTS. 


ley; whose associate, clinging less to the past, in effect pre¬ 
serves more for the present. To learn the external scene of 
the Apostle’s career, we would refer our readers to Messrs. 
Conybeare and Howson; to appreciate his moral surround¬ 
ings, and the problems it presented, especially on the ethnic 
side, they may take Mr. Stanley as their guide ; but for in¬ 
sight into the Apostle himself, and outlook on the world as it 
seemed to him, they must resort to Mr. Jowett. 

The Pauline Epistles are interesting, apart from all assump¬ 
tion of inspired authority, because the elements are seen fer¬ 
menting there of the greatest known revolution both in the 
history of the world and in the Spiritual consciousness of indi¬ 
vidual man. Judaism was the narrowest (that is, the most 
special) of religions; Christianity, the most human and com¬ 
prehensive. Within a few years, the latter was evolved out of 
the former; taking all its intensity and durability, without 
resort to any of its limitations. This marvellous expansion of 
the national into the universal was not achieved without a pro¬ 
cess and a conflict. Divine though the work was, it had to be 
wrought upon men, and through men, whose character, in¬ 
terests, convictions, habits, and institutions furnished the data 
conditioning the problem, and whose remodelled affections and 
will supplied the instruments for its solution. The laws of hu¬ 
man nature, therefore, and the action of human events, necessa¬ 
rily enter into the study of this great revolution ; and it cannot 
be detained out of the hands of the historian by any exclusive 
rights of the divine. When we endeavor to trace the succes¬ 
sive steps of faith from Mount Zion to the Vatican, many parts 
of the progress appear to have left but scanty vestige. We 
know the beginning, in the doctrine of the Hebrew Messiah ; 
we know the end, in the recognition of a Saviour of the world. 
We know the intermediate fact, — that Judaism did not sur¬ 
render its own without a struggle, or readily give away the 
keys of its enclosure just when it was passing from a prison of 
affliction into a palace of “ the kingdom.” But within this 
general fact lies a world of mysterious detail, — nay, almost 
the whole life of the early Church. Who began the open 


ST. PAUL AND HIS MODERN STUDENTS. 


421 


breach between Messiah and the Law ? how, and to what ex¬ 
tent, did the parties divide ? what was their relative magnitude 
at different times and in different places ? and by what process 
was the difference terminated, and the two extremes — Mar- 
cion on the one hand and the Ebionites on the other — re¬ 
moved outside as heretics ? The Christianity of the third 
century is so little like the doctrine of Matthew’s Gospel as to 
perplex our sense of identity. No one can bring the two into 
direct comparison, without feeling how much must have hap¬ 
pened to shape the earlier into the form of the later. Could 
we trace the flow and estimate the sources of this change, the 
most wonderful of the world’s experiences would be resolved. 
The continuity, however, of visible causation is often broken; 
there are everywhere many missing links in the chain, and a 
chasm extending through a large part of the second century. 
But a generation earlier we meet with materials of the rich¬ 
est value in the Epistles of St. Paul; and by their aid the 
general direction may be found by which thought and events 
must have advanced. Otherwise, the change would seem as 
violent and inconceivable as a convulsion that should mingle 
the Jordan and the Tiber. 

No doubt, the germ of the Gospel’s universality is to be 
found in the personal characteristics of its Author, — in the 
whole spirit of his life, and the direct tendency of his teach¬ 
ings. He who found in the love of God and love of man the 
very springs of eternal life; who measured good and evil, not 
by the act, but by the affection wheiice they come; who 
placed his ideal for man in likeness to the perfection of God, 
— had already proclaimed a religion transcending all local 
limits. Nay, if he opposed the “ true worship ” to the services 
at Gerizim and Jerusalem, and could wish the Temple away, 
that obstructed his direct dealing with the human soul and 
suppressed the inner shrine u not made with hands,” he 
must even have placed himself in an attitude of open aliena¬ 
tion towards the ritual of his people. At the same time, his 
words seem to have left not unfrequently an opposite impres¬ 
sion. He comes, “ not to destroy the Law and the prophets, 
30 


422 


ST. PAUL AND HIS MODERN STUDENTS. 


but to fulfil ” them; “ not a jot or a tittle is to fail.” His 
most spiritual truths and sentiments, instead of being an¬ 
nounced as novelties grounding themselves on his personal 
authority, are drawn out of the old Hebrew Scriptures; and 
even the life beyond death he finds lurking in patriarchal id¬ 
ioms and phrases heard at the burning bush. His intensest 
polemic against the sacerdotal party goes on within the limits 
of the system which they represent and yet corrupt; and his 
bitterest reproach against them is that there is no reverence 
for it in their hearts, since they hugely violate and trivially 
obey it. Far from ever launching out against law as law, or 
setting up faith as a rival principle excluding it, he extends 
precept to the last heights of religion, enjoins the divinest af¬ 
fections, as if there also obedience was possible, and duty and 
volition had their place. It was not in a nature holy and 
harmonious as his, — type of heavenly peace rather than of 
earthly conflict, — that the schism would be exhibited between 
Will and Love ; where both are at their height, there is no 
rent between them. Nor was there need, in that meek, rev¬ 
erential soul, to break with the past, in order to find a sanc¬ 
tity for the present, and leave an inspiration for the future. 
Some things, once given for the hardness of men’s hearts, 
might be dropped, and fall behind ; but God had ever lived, 
and left the trace of his perfectness upon the elder times as 
on the newest manifestations of the hour. There was enough 
in the Law, if only its fruitful seeds were warmed into life, to 
furnish forth the Gospel. And so Christ presents himself as 
the disciple of Moses, and in the Sermon on the Mount does 
but open out the tables of Sinai. It was not, therefore, with¬ 
out honest ground that his immediate disciples could defend 
him from the charge of being unfaithful to the religion of his 
native land. And yet the instinct of the priests and rabbis 
told them truly that he and they could not co-exist, that his 
doctrine reduced their work to naught, and that, whenceso¬ 
ever he might draw it, there was no doubt whither he must 
carry it. The “ witnesses ” were not altogether “ false ” 
which they brought to show his inner hostility to the altar 


ST. PAUL AND HIS MODERN STUDENTS. 


423 


ceremonial; and perhaps his enemies, with apprehension 
sharpened by fear, more correctly interpreted his tendency in 
this direction than his followers, entangled in the cloud of a 
Judaic love. It was quite natural that the real antithesis be¬ 
tween the Law and the Gospel should thus be first felt by his 
antagonists, whilst as yet it slept undeveloped in the minds of 
his followers and in the habitual expression of his own 
thought; and that its earliest proclamation should be their 
act, their defiance, the cross on Calvary! 

This terrible challenge, fiercely protesting that the Law 
would hold no parley with the Gospel, the Apostles, however, 
refused to accept. They still denied their Lord’s apostasy 
or their own ; they had always been, and with his encourage¬ 
ment, the best of Jews: nor did they contemplate, so far, any 
change. The crucifixion was a Jewish mistake, meant for 
the nation’s enemy, but alighting on its representative ; a 
mistake, however, which God had counteracted by a glorious 
rescue, in the resurrection of the crucified. The mischief 
being thus undone, the day of Hebrew opportunity was re¬ 
sumed ; the ministry of Jesus was not closed; he yet lived 
and preached to them as before ; — no longer, indeed, in per¬ 
son till their better mind should re-assert itself, but by “ faith¬ 
ful witnesses ” ; — no longer too in tentative disguise, but now 
identified as Messiah by his exaltation above this world. 
Whatever conflicts of mind the disciples suffered in the mys¬ 
terious period following the crucifixion, the operation of the 
resurrection and the Spirit was at first simply to reinstate 
them in their prior faith, — that the kingdom would soon be 
restored to Israel, and be brought in by no other than their 
Master, already waiting for the crisis in a higher world till 
God’s hour should come. There is no evidence to show that, 
on the transference of their Lord’s life from earth to heaven, 
they were carried into any greater comprehensiveness or 
spirituality of faith: their convictions were more intense, but 
held on in the same direction, being all included in one great 
theme, — the speedy coming of Messiah’s kingdom and the 
end of the world. Nay, of so little consequence, in compar- 


424 ST. I»AUL AND HIS MODERN STUDENTS. 

ison with this general picture of expectation, was even the 
appearance in it of the person of Jesus as its central figure? 
that Apollos, more than twenty years afterwards, was making 
and baptizing converts, without having ever heard of any later 
prophet than John the Baptist; and these people are already 
recognized as u disciples,” and then informed, as needful 
complement to their faith, that, besides the crisis being near, 
the person is appointed.* Here had evidently been, for some 
quarter of a century, two independent streams of Messianic 
faith, one from a rather earlier source than the other, but 
pursuing their own separate way, till thus partially confluent 
at Ephesus. And what is the relation between them ? One 
of them baptizes into an impersonal and anonymous hope, 
the other into the same hope with the name attached. And * 
when these two states of mind are set side by side, they are 
regarded as the same in their essence, and differing only in 
completeness. Nor is there anything in their mutual feeling 
to hinder their instant coalescence. This fact defines in the 
clearest way the position of the early Church ; the ordinary 
Jew believed that Messiah would some time come, and bring 
in “ the last days ” ; Apollos, that he would come erelong; 
the Christians, that already the person was indicated, and 
would prove to be Jesus of Nazareth. All three co-existed 
within the Hebrew pale, and the two last fall under the com¬ 
mon category of “ disciples.” 

It was impossible, however, that the contemplation of a 
Messiah risen and reserved in heaven should affect all the 
believers in a precisely similar manner. His personal attend¬ 
ants it would take up just where the crucifixion had let them 
down; would give new force to their previous impressions, 
new sacredness to their recollections, new significance to his 
words and example, new reluctance to venture where he had 
not led. The whole effect would be conservative, and tend 
to fix them, with an inspired rigor, within the limits of the 
Master’s lot and life. Quite otherwise was it with the new 


* Acts xviii. 24; xix. 7. 



ST. PAUL AND IIIS MODEIIN STUDENTS. 


425 


disciples, who had no such restraining memories of the human 
Teacher. They began with Christ above, and were tied 
down by no concrete biographical images, no scruples of 
tender retrospect. They were free to ask themselves, “ What 
meant this'surprising way of revealing Messiah 4 in heavenly 
places,’ and letting his disguise first fall off in his escape from 
local relations ? The scene from which he looked down, — 
was it the mere upper chamber of Judaea, or did it overarch 
the human world ? Who could claim him, now that he was 
there ? Was it for him to examine pedigrees to test 1 the 
children of the kingdom’; or would he, as Son of David, 
even come emblazoned with his own ? ” The mere conception 
of an ascended and immortal being, assessor to the Lord of 
all, seemed to dwarf and shame all provincial restrictions, and 
sanction the distaste for binding forms and ceremonial exclu¬ 
siveness. The withdrawal of Christ to a holier sphere ac¬ 
corded well with all that was most spiritual in his teachings 
and in himself; and could not fail to reflect a strong light 
back on this aspect of his life, and give a more significant 
emphasis to the tradition of his deepest words. In the mind 
of many a disciple this tendency would be favored by a weari¬ 
ness towards the outer worship of the temple, and a secret 
aspiration after purer and more intimate communion with 
God. Especially was the foreign Jew obliged to confess 
such a feeling to himself. The very speaking of Greek 
spoiled him for thinking as a Hebrew; for language is the 
channel of the soul, and according as the organism is open, 
the sap will flow. Accustomed to the simple piety of the 
Proseucha, where God was sought without priest or sacrifice, 
and adequately found in poetry, and prophecy, and prayer, the 
Hellenist acquired a tone of sentiment on which the material 
pomps and puerilities of Mount Moriah painfully jarred. Nor 
could he enclose himself contentedly, like the Palestine Jew, 
within the sacred boundary that admitted the most worthless 
son of Abraham, and shut the noblest Gentile out. Living 
in heathen cities, dealing with heathen men, touched at times 
with the sorrow or the goodness of heathen neighbors, his 
36 * 


426 


ST. PAUL AND HIS MODERN STUDENTS. 


moral feeling fell into contradiction with his inherited exclu¬ 
siveness, and inwardly demanded some other providential 
classification of mankind. Accordingly, it was the Hellenist 
Stephen who first saw, in the heavenly Christ, a principle of 
universal religion and a proclamation of spiritual worship. 
When accused of defaming Moses and the Law and the holy 
place, and setting up Jesus to supersede them, he boldly re¬ 
flects on the stone Temple, rooted to one spot, as at variance 
with His nature who said, “ Heaven is my throne, and earth 
my footstool,” and points to the earlier tabernacle, movable 
from place to place, following the steps of wandering human¬ 
ity, as truer emblem of a faith that takes every winding of 
history, and a God who goes where we go, and stays where 
we stay.* This noble doctrine doubtless expressed a feeling 
common among the foreign Jews of liberal culture and fervid 
piety; and when consecrated by Stephen’s martyrdom, it 
would assume a distinctness unknown before, and become the 
admitted type of belief among the Christian Hellenists. That 
it was confined to them is evident from the partial effect of 
the persecution in which Stephen fell. His friends, — per¬ 
haps we may say his party, — hunted from house to house, 
fled from Jerusalem; but the Jewish Apostles remained where 
they were, f apparently unmenaced and undisturbed. The 
hostility of the city drew therefore a distinction between such 
Hebrew Christians as the twelve, and the freer “ Grecians ” 
who proclaimed a Spirit above the Temple and the Law. 
The former, constituting an inner sect of Judaism, might hold 
their ground unmolested; the latter were treated as apostates, 
and “ scattered abroad.” The essential, but hitherto dormant, 
antithesis between the Gospel and the Law, had thus burst 
into expression, and embodied itself in two sections of the 
Church that grew ever more distinct; the Hebrew party con¬ 
centrated in Jerusalem, and remaining intensely national; the 
Hellenistic, spreading itself on the outskirts of Palestine, 
and erelong fixing its head-quarters at Antioch. Within 


* Acts vii. 44 - 49. 


f Acts viii. 1. 



ST. PAUL AND HIS MODERN STUDENTS. 


427 


this freer circle, first as persecutor, soon as disciple, appears 
Saul of Tarsus. So congenial are its tendencies and aspira¬ 
tions with his nature and his antecedent position, that his 
hostile attitude towards it might well strike him, on looking 
back, as a monstrous self-contradiction. A foreigner to Pal¬ 
estine, a “ citizen of no mean city,” familiar with a trade that 
bought from the shepherds of Mount Taurus, and sold to the 
Greek skippers of the Levant, he knew the human side of 
the Gentile world too well to rest in a narrow Judaism. We 
cannot imagine his fervid, free-moving mind, content to live 
within the enclosure of Rabbinical niceties, or able to find, in 
the materialism of the Temple rites, his ideal of true worship. 
With sympathies essentially cosmopolitan, he could scarcely 
fail to be disappointed, not to say repelled, by Jerusalem, — 
so different from the dream of his young romance. Some 
higher, fresher communion between earth and heaven, some 
wider monarchy for God than over a mere clan, would be to 
him natural objects of aspiration. Hence his first persecuting 
attitude towards the Christian Hellenists was permanently 
untenable; and as he went amongst them, words were sure 
to fall upon his ear, and holy looks to meet his eye, that 
would smite him with a kindred affection. Whether the 
death of Stephen left on his mind images which he could, not 
banish, and commenced a reaction which no plunge into 
fresh violences could arrest, it is vain to conjecture. That it 
should be so, would be only human; for in the life of passion, 
triumph and humiliation are near neighbors, and often the 
last note in the song of exultation dies down into the plaint 
of compunction. Certain it is, th^t shortly afterwards it 
“pleased God to reveal his Son in him”; that, with the 
suddenness characteristic of impassioned natures, he came to 
himself, and found his proper work, “ to which he had been 
set apart from his mother’s womb ”; and that his new convic¬ 
tions were of the very same type and tendency with Stephen’s, 
and strongly discriminated from the Messianic doctrine of the 
twelve at Jerusalem. The incipient breach between Law and 
Gospel, latent in the Master, denied by the twelve, bursting 


428 


ST. PAUL AND HIS MODERN STUDENTS. 


forth among the Hellenists, finally realized and defined itself 
in Paul; whose intense impulses were too great for the custo¬ 
dy of his will; whose soul had wings to fly, but not feet to 
plod; who felt himself the theatre of living powers not his 
own, and could find no peace till, by communion with the 
heavenly Son of God, he discovered a providential love uni¬ 
versal as human life, and a way of reconciliation quick and 
open as human trust and reverence. It is easier to speak of 
the effects than of the nature of his conversion. His writ¬ 
ings exhibit its results, but only vaguely allude to its occur¬ 
rence, and never in terms at all resembling the recitals in 
the Book of Acts, or abating their discrepancies. Of these 
narratives (Acts ix. 1-9, xxii. 6-12, xxvi. 12-18) Mr. 
Jowett remarks, “ There is no use in attempting any forced 
reconcilement.” (I. 229.) On the one hand, “ There is no 
fact in history more certain or undisputed than that, in some 
way or other, by an inward vision or revelation of the Lord, 
or by an outward miraculous appearance as he was going to 
Damascus, the Apostle was suddenly converted from being a 
persecutor to become a preacher of the Gospel.” (I. 227.) 
On the other, “ If we submit the narrative of the Acts to the 
ordinary rules of evidence, we shall scarcely find ourselves 
able to determine whether any outward fact was intended by 
it or not.” This, however, is of the less moment, because it is 
evident from the language of the Epistle to the Galatians 
(Gal. i. 15, 16) that,— 

“ Whether the conversion of St. Paul was an outward or 
an inward fact, it was not principally the outward appearance 
in the heavens, but the inward effect, that the Apostle would 
have regarded. Compare Eph. iii. 3 : i How that by revela¬ 
tion he made known unto me the mystery (as I wrote afore 
in few words).’ 

“ It has been often remarked, that miracles are not ap¬ 
pealed to singly in Scripture as evidences of religion, in the 
same way that they have been used by modern writers. Es¬ 
pecially does this remark apply to the conversion of St. Paul. 
Not a hint is found in his writings, that he regarded ‘ the 


ST. PAUL AND HIS MODERN STUDENTS. 


429 


heavenly vision’ as an objective evidence of Christianity. 
The evidence to him was the sudden change of heart; what 
he terms, in the case of his converts, the reception of the 
Spirit; what he had known, and what he felt; the fact that 
one instant he was a persecutor, and the second a preacher of 
the Gospel. The last inquiry that he would have thought of 
making, would be that of modern theologians : ‘ How, with¬ 
out some outward sign, he could be assured of the reality of 
what he had seen and heard.’ No outward sign could, as 
such, have convinced the mind of a man who fell to the 
ground amazed, unless it were certain that his companions 
had seen the light and heard the voice. Nor unless they had 
distinctly been partakers of the supernatural vision could he 
ever have been satisfied that what they saw was anything but 
a meteor, or lightning, or that the voice they heard was more 
than the sound of thunder. No evidence of theirs would 
have been an answer to the language of some of the ration¬ 
alist divines: ‘St. Paul was overtaken by a storm of thunder 
and lightning in the neighborhood of Damascus.’ Such diffi¬ 
culties are insuperable ; at best we can only raise probabili¬ 
ties in answer to them, based on the general tone of the 
narrative in Acts ix. But we may remember that the belief 
in some outward fact was not the essential point in St. Paul’s 
faith, and therefore we need not make it the essential point 
in our own. 

“ It is not upon the testimony of any single person, even 
were it far more distinct than in the present instance, we can 
venture to peril the truth of the Christian religion* Weak 
defences of comparatively unimportant points, undermine 
more than they support. He who has the Spirit of Christ 
and his Apostles, has the witness in himself; he who leads 
the life of Paul, has already set his seal that his words are 
true. Were the other view supported by the most irrefraga¬ 
ble historical evidence, — had the sign in the clouds been 
beheld by whole multitudes of Jews and Gentiles, believers 
and unbelivers, — it is to the internal aspect of the event we 


430 ST. PAUL AND HIS MODERN STUDENTS. 

should be more inclined to turn, both as the more religious 
one, and the one which more closely links the Apostle with 
ourselves.” — Vol. I. p. 230. 

With the essentially inward character of this crisis, the 
substance of the revelation involved in it strikingly corre¬ 
sponds. 

“ It was spiritual rather than historical; a revelation of 
Christ in him, not external information brought to him. It 
was the ever-growing sense of union with Christ, imparted, 
not in one revelation, but many; not only by special reve¬ 
lation, but as the inward experience of a long life, from which 
his union in Christ with all mankind, and his mission to 
preach the Gospel to the Gentiles, were from the beginning 
inseparable ; as a part of which the image of the meekness 
and gentleness of Christ formed itself in him, not without the 
remembrance that he had ‘ seen ’ Him who was now passed 
into the heavens.” — Jowett, Yol. I. p. 216. 

Since the Apostle “ nowhere speaks of any special truths 
or doctrines as imparted to himself” (I. 72) ; since he never 
dwells on the life of Christ, the miracles, the parables, so that 
it is even doubtful what he knew of them; and since his 
whole appeal is either, (1.) to the witness of the Hebrew 
Scriptures, or (2.) to historical testimony, or (3.) to the as¬ 
surance of the living Spirit, — it is evident that his conver¬ 
sion chiefly gave him that inward image of Christ crucified 
and risen, which attended him through all his years, and so 
lived in him as to take the place of his personality, and 
coalesce with his spiritual affections, and do the work of his 
will. v 

Of the Apostle’s mode of thought when fresh from his con¬ 
version no memorial exists ; his earliest extant writing being 
of a date fourteen or fifteen years later, and the report in the 
Book of Acts not being altogether reliable — as Mr. Jowett 
has shown *— for historical accuracy. But we learn from 


* See especially the Notes on Paley’s Horse Paulinae, Yol. I. pp. 349, 252. 
We subjoin in this connection a just and striking remark of Mr. Jowett’s. In 



ST. PAUL AND HIS MODERN STUDENTS. 


431 


his own remarkable statement to the Galatians, that he kept 
aloof from the churches in Judaea, and was unknown to 
them by face; that it was three years before he entered Je¬ 
rusalem, or saw an Apostle; that he then made acquaintance 
with Peter, and met James, but without its affecting his inde¬ 
pendent course, which ran through eleven years more ere it 
brought him to Jerusalem again; that his errand, on this sec¬ 
ond visit, was to take security against being thwarted by 
Jewish jealousies sanctioned at head-quarters; that from 
James, Cephas, and John — the “ seeming pillars ” of the 
Church — he learnt nothing that he cared to hear; that they, 
on the other hand, could not gainsay the independent rights 
of so fruitful an apostleship, and agreed with him not to cross 
his path, if he would leave them theirs. The emphasis with 
which, in this animated passage, St. Paul dwells on the sepa¬ 
rate sources of his own faith, and disowns any obligation to 
the prior Apostles, renders it certain that the biography, the 
discourses, the human personality of Jesus, were indifferent to 
him ; and that with only the cross and the resurrection (con¬ 
tained as data in the vision of conversion) he could construct 
his scheme. The unmistakable sarcasm of the expressions, 
oi doKovvres, — doKovvres elvai n — oi 8okovvtc s otuAoi emu, — 
betrays a state of mind, in regard to the twelve, out of all 
sympathy with the grounds of their authority. And the ne¬ 
cessity, in order to agreement, of marking out for each, not a 
separate geographical beat, but a distinct religious and eth¬ 
nologic ground, shows that, with external mutual toleration, 
there is yet wanting the inner unity of an identic faith. Only 
in the absence of a common Gospel would each party have to 


inquiries of this sort, it is often supposed that, if the evidence of the genuine¬ 
ness of a single book of Scripture be weakened, or the credit of a single 
chapter shaken, a deep and irreparable injury is inflicted on Christian truth, 
and may afford a rest to the mind to consider that, if but one discourse of 
Christ, one Epistle of Paul, had come down to us, still more than half would 
have been preserved. Coleridge has remarked, that out of a single play of 
Shakespeare the whole of English literature might be restored. Much more 
true is it that in short portions or single verses of Scripture the whole spirit 
of Christianity is contained. Vol. I. p. 352. 




432 


ST. PAUL AND HIS MODERN STUDENTS. 


take its own, and spare the other Indeed, the difference was 
so fundamental as to involve everything that St. Paul then, 
and Christians now, would deem characteristic of their-re¬ 
ligion. 

The question was this, — “ How might a born Gentile be¬ 
come a Christian ? ” — “ By becoming a Jew first, and then 
accepting Jesus as appointed to be the Jews’ Messiah,” was 
the answer at Jerusalem. “ By believing in Jesus straight¬ 
way,” was the reply of Paul. With irresistible force he 
contended that, according to his opponents’ view, the Gospel 
opened no door at all, and was simply nugatory. For it had 
always been possible for a Gentile to become a Jew; and if, 
without this step, faith in Christ was unavailing, the real effi¬ 
cacy must lie in what the Jew brought to Christ, not in what 
he received from him; so that it was hard to say what good 
there could be in passing on from Moses at all, or what essen¬ 
tial difference between the unconverted and the converted 
Hebrew. And, in truth, they were not strongly contrasted in 
Jerusalem; and in habit, thought, and feeling, the twelve 
were probably much nearer to Gamaliel than to Paul. The 
altercation between Peter and Paul at Antioch is full of in¬ 
struction on this point; proving, as it does, that the intensest 
form of ritual exclusiveness — the refusal to partake at table 
with the uncircumcised — was retained in the parent church, 
and enforced with jealous vigilance. In the Syrian capital 
the Gentile disciples were numerous, the Pauline comprehen¬ 
siveness prevailed, and the intercourses of life were unhin¬ 
dered by ceremonial scruples. Peter, thrown amongst them 
on a visit, yields to the local impression, and, as long as he can 
do so unobserved, falls in with their free ways; feeling all the 
while, no doubt, like the Quaker from home tempted into a 
ball-dress or regimentals. Soon, however, the strict brethren 
at Jerusalem send to look after him or the Antiochians, and 
instantly his liberality is gone; he is the prim Jew again, and 
the Gentile dishes are all unclean. And who then are these 
new witnesses, that he should fear their report ? They are 
deputies from James, “ the brother of the Lord,” who, on 


ST. PAUL AND HIS MODERN STUDENTS. 


433 


account of this affinity,* was the recognized head of the Ju¬ 
daean Christians; and of whose ascetic abstinences, and con¬ 
stant devotions on the temple pavement , till “ his knees were 
become like the knees of a camel,” Hegesippus preserved the 
tradition.f It was clear, therefore, that Peter’s association 
with the Gentile Christians was exceptional, — a violation of 
his professed rule, and of the allowed usage of the Apostolic 
Church. To own brotherhood with the uncircumcised believ¬ 
er, was a forfeiture of character, probably an outrage on his 
own conscience, to the Christian Apostle ! This was the result, 
among his first disciples, of nearly twenty years’ belief of 
Christ in heaven. There could be no real sympathy between 
such an evangile and Paul’s. It let him make converts, but 
would not acknowledge them when made. It could not resist 
the fact of his success, but treated his “ children in the faith” 
as in a doubtful case, left to Heaven’s “ uncovenanted mer¬ 
cies,” and needing to be put in a securer state, as soon as his 
back was turned, and teachers could be sent to complete the 
the task. Hence the opposition that tracked the steps, and so 
much marred the work of the Apostle, wherever he went; 
and in repelling which he wrote his chief Epistles, and ma¬ 
tured the form of his great theology. Mr. Jowett, whilst 
allowing that this opposition was systematic and persistent, 
and in some degree connived at by the twelve, is yet anxious 
to lay it mainly to the charge of their followers, and defines 
the relation of the two sections thus : “ Separation, not op¬ 
position ; antagonism of the followers rather than of the lead¬ 
ers ; personal antipathy of the Judaizers to St. Paul, rather 
than of St. Paul to the twelve.” (I. 326.) These are fine dis¬ 
tinctions, and for this very reason likely, we fear, in the rough 
movement of human passions, to be more ideal than real. 
True, the feeling of a leader is ever apt to run into exaggera¬ 
tion among the followers ; nor probably was Apostolic control 

* Was it in reference to this mere family-title to a spiritual authority that 
Paul says of the Jerusalem Apostles, “ Whatever they were, it maketh no 
matter to me; God accepteth no man's person ” ? (Gal. iii. 6.) 

f Ap. Euseb. Hist. Eccles. H. 23. 

37 




434 


ST. PAUL AND HIS MODERN STUDENTS. 


over the mass of believers so complete as to exclude this 
danger. But the Epistle to the Galatians is written by one 
leader, and speaks of the others ; and the impression it con¬ 
veys is surely one of very decided antagonism, and that, too, 
not accidental, but depending on permanent differences of 
principle, which discussion did not smooth away, and which 
penetrated into the very organism of daily life. In the alter¬ 
cation with Peter, what was the point of Paul’s rebuke? 
Did he simply censure his moral weakness and inconsistency ? 
Not so, or he would have exhorted him to take whichever 
course he approved, and stick to it. Did he find fault with 
his exceptional act, of eating with the Gentile Christians ? 
Not so, for he did the same himself. The thing he blamed 
was nothing less than the rule and usage by which Peter 
habitually lived , and which, it is declared, virtually made 
Christ of none effect. Here was a collision of irreconcila¬ 
ble principles, and every subsequent occasion of personal con¬ 
tact, under like conditions, would be as liable to produce it as 
the first. Nor have we, in fact, any reason to suppose a closer 
approximation at a later part of the Apostolic age. That 
Paul looked with any particular respect on the other Apostles, 
is surely not proved, as Mr. Jowett imagines, by his appeal 
(1 Cor. xv. 5) to their testimony respecting the fact of their 
Lord’s resurrection, or by his claiming (1 Cor. ix. 5) to stand 
on a like footing of privilege with them.* To produce the 
spectators of an event as its proper witnesses, is no expression 
of feeling towards them at all; and to say, “ Are the other 
Apostles to have the right of taking their wives with them at 
the cost of the Church, and may not I take or decline my 
mere personal maintenance as I think proper ? ” institutes a 


* In proof of an essential unity of teaching, Mr. Jowett quotes Paul as 
declaring that what they preached against him was “ not another ” gospel, 
“ for there was not, could not, be another.” (I. 340.) But far from bear¬ 
ing this conciliatory turn, which is out of character with the whole con¬ 
text, Gal. i. 6 affirms that what his opponents have been preaching is (1.) 
another gospel; and yet (2.) not another gospel, (not so good even as that,) 
but mere disturbance and perversion, the negation of a gospel. 



ST. PAUL AND HIS MODERN STUDENTS. 


435 


comparison in which it is difficult to discover any strong sen¬ 
timent of “ respect.” Nor do the doctrinal agreements, of 
which, as well as of the personal relations of fellowship, our 
author makes the most, amount to any substantial concur¬ 
rence, when we penetrate to the essence from the form. On 
both sides, says Mr. Jowett, the disciples were baptized into 
the same name. (I. 340.) Yes ; but how different the object 
named as present to their thought; in the one case, the hu¬ 
man life in its detail, with the resurrection as its crown; in 
the other, the cross of Christ that stands between them, and 
his life in heaven that passes beyond them! Both sections, 
it is again said, find their ground in the Old Testament. (I. 
341.) True : but the one on Moses, the tables, and the holy 
place; the other, on Adam’s nature, and the patriarchs’ free¬ 
dom, and the prophets’ insight; the one, moreover, using the 
ground to intrench the Law for ever; the other, to drive 
the ploughshare over its ruins, and make it a fruitful field. 
Once more, it is said that on both sides there was a looking 
for “ the day of the Lord,” an expectation of Christ’s re¬ 
turn to end the world within that generation. (I. 341.) 
Assuredly, but with such differences in the vision, that, in the 
apocalyptic picture of the one, Paul is not among the Apostles, 
or his followers among the white-robed and crowned (Rev. 
xxi. 14, and ii. 2, 14, 20) ; while in that of the other, the 
advent will but perfect and perpetuate a union with Christ, 
already present to their consciousness, and open to all who 
I live with him in the Spirit. In short, twenty years after the 
i death of Christ, the two elements that were harmonized in 
him, but are ever apt to part in our imperfect minds, the eth¬ 
ical and the mystical, the historical and spiritual, ascetic con¬ 
centration and outspreading trust, fell into determinate antith¬ 
esis, realizing their conflict in the immediate question of Jew 
and Gentile, and finding their respective representatives in 
the twelve and St. Paul. 

Whether, besides and beyond this general development of 
j the Christian system, there was also a special development of 
doctrine into higher degrees of spirituality within the mind of 




436 


ST. PAUL AND HIS MODERN STUDENTS. 


St. Paul himself, is a question of less interest and more diffi¬ 
culty. Both Mr. Stanley and Mr. Jowett find traces of such 
a change in the modified sentiment of his later writings, and 
even make the Apostle himself depose to his own enlarge¬ 
ment of view. We must confess that this speculation, though 
excluded by no antecedent improbability, appears to us less 
well supported than anything in these volumes. It is ingeni¬ 
ously presented and argued by Mr. Jowett in his introduc¬ 
tion to the Tliessalonian Epistles ; and by means of it he ex¬ 
plains the marked absence from these letters of St. Paul’s 
usual topics and manner, and gets rid of the objection urged 
on this ground to their authenticity. Applied at the other 
end of the Apostle’s career, the hypothesis accounts for the 
prominence, in the Epistles to the Ephesians, Philippians, 
and Colossians, of certain conceptions, doubtfully traceable 
elsewhere, of the place of Christ in the hierarchy of the 
universe, and of his union with his disciples as his “ body.” 
The pastorals may be left out of consideration, as their mixed 
phenomena cannot be much used in the service of this theory. 
The broad facts are undoubted, — that the four great central 
Epistles (Galatians, Corinthians, Romans) must be taken as 
our foci of authority for the characteristics of St. Paul; that, 
in the earlier Thessalonians, these characteristics are over¬ 
shadowed by the more Judaic doctrine of the “day of the 
Lord,” and in the later Ephesians, &c., by the more Gnostic 
conception of a spiritual hierarchy and pleroma. But these 
facts are quite overworked when set to prove our author’s 
thesis. In order to establish a process of personal develop¬ 
ment, they ought to exhibit certain natural links of psycho¬ 
logical and moral ^succession, and not mere abrupt and unre¬ 
lated contrasts of subject. To look for such organic indica¬ 
tions in the sparse productions of the Apostle’s pen, is to ask 
too much from a few incidental letters, bearing to his whole 
life the proportion of a dozen pages of random excerpts to a 
cyclopaedia. If only the matters treated be different, the 
whole group of writings may very well express, in its several 
parts and aspects, one simultaneous state of mind. If the 



ST. PAUL AND HIS MODERN STUDENTS. 


437 


types of thought be such as could scarcely co-exist, the cause 
may be sought as reasonably in a plurality of authors as in a 
succession of beliefs in the same author; and only a most 
delicate combination of symptoms can rescue the problem 
from this indeterminate state of double solution. Nor ought 
we to forget, in weighing the probabilities, that the whole set 
of Epistles comprising the phenomena of difference were 
written within nine years; and that, ere the first of them was 
produced, St Paul had been a convert fifteen years, and had 
reached the age of fifty. The earlier and longer of these 
periods is a more natural seat of mental change than the 
later and shorter; especially of a change not apparent so 
much in particular judgments and opinions, as in the whole 
complexion of spiritual feeling and idea. 

But, we are assured, the Apostle directly testifies to his 
own progress in doctrine; and intimates (2 Cor. v. 1G) that 
there was a time when he had “ known Christ according to 
the flesh,” — had preached him “ in a more Jewish and less 
spiritual manner,” — though “ henceforth he would know him 
so no more.” Mr. Stanley, explaining this much-disputed 
phrase, says : — 

“ Probably, he must be here alluding to those who laid 
stress on their having seen Christ in Palestine, or on their 
connection with him or with 4 the brothers of the Lord ’ by 
actual descent; and if so, they were probably of the party 
‘ of Christ But the words lead us to infer that something 
of this kind had once been his own state of mind, not only in 
the time before his conversion (which he would have con¬ 
demned more strongly), but since. If so, it is (like Phil. iii. 
13-15) a remarkable confession of former weakness and 
error, and of conscious progress in religious knowledge.” — 
Yol. IL p. 106. 

Did St. Paul then ever “ lay stress on having seen Christ 
in Palestine”? or on actual blood-connection with him? or 
on “ something of this kind ” ? To personal relations with 
Jesus in his ministry or family he had no pretensions ; and 
the spirit with which he had always treated everything “ of 
37 * 


433 


ST. PAUL AND HIS MODERN STUDENTS. 


this kind,” is so apparent from his narrative to the Galatians 
as to contradict Mr. Stanley’s inference. Mr. Jowett gives 
the phrase a different turn. Finding (Gal. v. 11) the Apostle 
charged with at one time 44 preaching circumcision,” he accepts 
this as synonymous with “knowing Christ according to the 
flesh” (i. 12). This, however, would imply that he was 
originally no 44 Apostle to the Gentiles,” but insisted on mediate 
conversion into the Gospel through the law. Feeling the 
irreconcilable variance of such an hypothesis with the auto¬ 
biographical notices in the Epistles, Mr. Jowett lowers his 
phraseology, and attributes to St. Paul’s early teaching only 
such sentiments as 44 might he thought ” to make him 44 a 
preacher of the circumcision.” And so we lose ourselves 
again in 44 something of the kind.” Yet at last, in the follow¬ 
ing passage, we find the critic’s finger distinctly laid on the 
doctrine which he proposes to identify with the Apostle’s 
44 knowing Christ according to the flesh.” 

44 That such a change ” (in the Apostle’s teaching) 44 is 
capable of being traced, has been already intimated. Both 
Epistles to the Thessalonians, with the exception of a few 
practical precepts, are the expansion and repetition of a sin¬ 
gle thought, — 4 the coming of Christ.’ It was the absorbing 
thought of the Apostle and his converts, quickened in both by 
the persecutions which they had suffered. Not that with this 
expectation of Christ’s kingdom there mingled any vision of 
a temporal rule over the kingdoms of the earth. That was 
far from the Apostle. But there was that in it which fell 
short of the more perfect truth. It was not, 4 The kingdom of 
God is within you ’; but, 4 Lo here, and lo there.’ It was de¬ 
fined by time, and was to take place within the Apostle’s own 
life. The images in which it clothed itself were traditional 
among the Jews; they were outward and visible, liable to the 
misconstruction of the enemies of the faith, and to the misap¬ 
prehension of the first converts, — imperfectly, as the Apostle 
saw afterwards, conveying the inward and spiritual meaning. 
The kingdom which they described was not eternal and 
heavenly, but very near and present, ready to burst forth 


ST. PAUL AND IIIS MODERN STUDENTS. 


439 


everywhere, and by its very nearness in point of time seeming 
to touch our actual human state. Afterwards the kingdom 
of God appeared to remove itself within, to withdraw into the 
unseen world. The earthen vessel must be broken first, the 
unbeliever unclothed that he might be clothed upon, that 
mortality may be swallowed up of life. He was no longer 
‘ waiting for the Son from heaven ’; but 4 desirous to depart 
and be with Christ ’ (Phil. i. 23). Such is the change, not 
so much in the Apostle’s belief as in his mode of conception; 
a change natural to the human mind itself, and above all to 
the Jewish mind; a change which, after it had taken place, 
left the vestiges of the prior state in the Montanism of the 
second century, which may not improperly be regarded as the 
spirit of the first century overliving itself. Old things had 
passed away, and, behold, all things became new. And yet 
the former things — the material vision of Christ’s kingdom 
— have ever been prone to return ; not only in the first and 
second century, but in every age of enthusiasm, men have 
been apt to walk by sight and not by faith. In the hour of 
trouble and perplexity, when darkness spreads itself over the 
earth, and Antichrist is already come, they have lifted up 
their eyes to the heavens, looking for the sign of the Son of 
man.” — Yol. I. p. 10. 

If to announce the coming of Christ is to 44 know him ac¬ 
cording to the flesh,” St. Paul assuredly did not keep his 
resolve “henceforth to know him no more.” For the expec¬ 
tation reappears, without any perceptible change, in his later 
Epistles ; as in Pom. xiii. 11, 12 : 44 Do this the rather, know¬ 
ing the time,—that now is the time to awake out of sleep: 
for our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed: 
the night is far spent; the day is at hand ”; — and in Phil. iv. 
5 : 44 The Lord is at hand.” * Moreover, it is utterly impos¬ 
sible that this element of his teaching could be adduced in 
proof of his 44 preaching circumcision.” It had nothing to do 

* Compare also Rom. xiv. 10; Phil. i. 6; 2 Tim. iv. 1. Nay, the very pas¬ 
sage in which he renounces the “ knowing of Christ according to the flesh,” 
contains the doctrine (2 Cor. v. 10). 



440 


ST. PAUL AND HIS MODERN STUDENTS. 


with the question of Jew and Gentile ; with the most opposite 
solutions of which it is equally compatible. 

In truth, our author has here combined two passages, 
which throw no light on one another, and has extracted from 
each what neither is able to yield. The words (in Gal. v. 11) 
“ if I still preach circumcision,” do not really imply that the 
Apostle once did so preach; though in an accurate writer 
this sense might be insisted on. He is not thinking of his 
own former notions, but of other people's, continuing unaltered 
after they ought to have changed. There were persons who, 
in spite of the dispensation of the Spirit, still preached cir¬ 
cumcision after its significance was gone. This did not Paul; 
but he was charged with doing so: and he says, “ Well, if so, 
I am a Judaizer like you, and I cannot be also chargeable 
with teaching that the cross of Christ supersedes the Law.” 
The true sense is, therefore, given by the rendering, “ If I 
preach circumcision still” — that is, as still necessary; and 
no tale is told of the Apostle’s earlier teaching. 

The other passage (2 Cor. v. 16) does undoubtedly refer 
to a former state of the writer’s own mind, when he “ recog¬ 
nized Christ according to the flesh.” But he alludes, we 
apprehend, to the period when he was a “ Hebrew of the 
Hebrews ”; and had no conception as yet of a suffering, 
dying, and heavenly Christ; — when he was full of the 
thoughts still occupying the twelve, who did not take in the 
significance of the cross, but carried past it their old Messi¬ 
anic notions. “ There may have been a time,” he means to 
say, “ when I thought only of a national, Israelitish, histor¬ 
ical Messiah, bound by the law of his fathers, and binding 
to it. Had this been the true conception of him, then would 
it have been a matter of privilege and pride to be near his 
person, to stand in natural relations with him, and be mixed 
up with the incidents of his local career. But 'ever since I 
understood the cross, and saw that Messiah’s life be^an in 
death, a far other truth has dawned upon me. When he 
gave up the ghost, all the accidents of his humanity — his 
lineage, his nationality, his earthly manifestation — were left 


ST. PAUL AND HIS MODERN STUDENTS. 


441 


behind and died away ; and they must carry with them into 
extinction whatever feelings had collected round them, — 
family pride, Jewish exclusiveness, and the memories of per¬ 
sonal companionship. From that moment, clear of earthly 
entanglements, Christ in the spirit draws to him a community 
of human spirits, — one with him in self-abnegation, dying to 
the earthly past; one with him in re-birth, living to heavenly 
union with God. Thus, if any one be in Christ, it amounts 
to a new creation; his old self has passed away; behold, all 
things have become new.” The Apostle, therefore, sets up 
the death of Christ, as cutting off, for all disciples, the prior 
time from the subsequent; as flinging the former, with all 
the human conceptions that cling to it, into eclipse and anni¬ 
hilation, and beginning a new and luminous existence in the 
latter ; as breaking the very identity of the believer, and de¬ 
livering him from the thraldom of nature into the freedom of 
the Spirit. The cross had already done its work ere St. 
Paul became a disciple. He had never known his Lord but 
in the spirit; and the “ Christ,” whom he had “ known ac¬ 
cording to the flesh,” was the Jewish Messiah of his previous 
and unconverted conception. Mr. Stanley’s objection, that 
the Apostle could hardly have spoken of his unconverted 
state without stronger condemnation, might perhaps hold, 
were the allusions to his fit of persecuting violence against 
the Church. But there was no occasion for self-reproach in 
describing the picture of a national Messiah, on which, in 
common with his countrymen, he had permitted his imagina¬ 
tion to dwell.* 


* With a curious inconsistency Mr. Stanley fixes at the Apostle's conversion 
the date after which he would no longer “ know Christ according to the 
flesh ”; yet in the very next note declares, that this state of mind must be 
referred to a more recent period than the conversion. 

“ thro tov vvv, from the time of my conversion." It is to be presumed that 
this is also Mr. Stanley’s interpretation of the vvv ovkctl of the next clause, 
which only repeats specifically of “ Christ ” what has just been said univer¬ 
sally. 

“ el Kai eyvaxapev Kara (rap/ca xp^rov, even though I have known; 
granting that I have known.” yivao-Kopev, i. e. Kara aapicd, “ henceforth 



442 


ST. PAUL AND HIS MODERN STUDENTS. 


Neither, then, from his own direct assertion, nor from com¬ 
parison of his several writings, inter se , do we learn anything 
of the alleged development of the Apostle’s doctrine. There 
is no element in it, that, from inability to co-exist with the 
rest, requires to be assigned to a date of its own. The breach 
with Judaism, especially, we conceive to have been complete 
from the first, and unsusceptible of degrees; nay, to have 
been the initial principle of his conversion, the secretly pre¬ 
pared condition or tendency of mind that rendered him acces¬ 
sible to the Divine call, and open to sudden change in the 
direction of his character. When first released from the 
formulas of a Jewish Christology, and communing in spirit 
with a heavenly and universal Lord, his mind would doubt¬ 
less be met by a multitude of new problems, and would work 
freely towards their resolution, with the quickening conscious¬ 
ness of new light streaming in, and a grander landscape of 
Providence opening before him. The very intensity of this 
inward action, however, — the thirst it sustains for its own 
completion, — forbids us to attribute to it a life-long duration; 
ere fifteen years were passed, its force would be spent by 
having realized its work, and attained the equilibrium of a 
holy peace. Whatever subsequent changes occurred would 
be of a different nature, enforced by the turn of the world’s 
affairs; a mere remoulding or reproportioning of inward 
faiths, in adaptation to the altered pressures of the hour. Of 
such modifications, such retreat towards the background of 
once favorite ideas, and advance of dim suggestions into strong 
light, there are doubtless examples in St. Paul. The expec¬ 
tation of Christ’s speedy coming to close the world’s affairs, 
and realize “ the kingdom,” could not but dominate at first, 
and pale every other interest and belief by the terror and 
glory of its light. But there is a limit beyond which the 

we know him no longer. The words lead us to infer that something 

of this kind had onee been [prior, surely, to the “ henceforth ”] his own 


state of mind, not only in the time before his conversion,. but since ! ” 

How then can the “ henceforth ” serve as the terminus a ouo, if the same 
state lies on both sides of it ? > 





ST. PAUL AND HIS MODERN STUDENTS. 


443 


strain of longing cannot be sustained; as it subsides, the 
present and actual recovers power, and pushes its problems 
forward, and gains once more the eye that had looked beyond' 
them. And so, after a while, spring up questions of Chris¬ 
tian order that will not bear to be put off; — how to live in a 
world that, however near its doom, entangles the disciple still 
in a web of difficult relations; how to touch the skirt of its 
idolatries, and not be tainted; how to behave to wife and 
child in this last generation of human affairs ; how to seal up 
the passions that ought to die within the saints, but were not 
dead ; how to prevent the gifts of the Spirit from overbal¬ 
ancing themselves, on the heights of a dizzied mind, into out¬ 
rages on nature ; how to preserve to the woman and the slave, 
in their exulting reaction from degraded life, the sense of 
modest reverence, and the appreciation of faithful service. 
Day by day questions of this kind insisted on attention, and 
brought out a fresh type of sentiments proper for their deter¬ 
mination, and offering to view a new side of the Christian 
thought and life. Nor, again, could many years elapse, be¬ 
fore the Jew and Gentile difficulty changed its whole aspect, 
and expanded, from a petty scruple compromised at Jerusalem, 
into a world-wide theology, regulative of all future history. 
When it became evident that it was no question about a 
small sprinkling of ethnic converts, — mere hangers-on of 
Hebrew families and synagogues; when the delay of Messiah, 
and the energy of Paul, gave occasion for thousands to pour 
in ; when it seemed imminent that Palestine should be out¬ 
voted and overpowered by the growth of the foreign Gospel, 
the alarm of the Judaic Christians became great. They 
tracked Paul’s steps; their emissaries were everywhere; 
their arguments and doctrine became more constricted, and 
his more wide and free; and as the clouds visibly lowered 
over Israel, touching him as well as them with gloom, all the 
more did he see the sunshine flood the lands beyond; and his 
national trust assumed this form,—that, maybe, the outlying 
heavenly light may creep back as the dark hour passes, and 
again set the shadows moving on the hills it has so long glo- 



444 


ST. PAUL AND HIS MODERN STUDENTS. 


rifled. The Apostle died before the question settled itself by 
the mere force of the facts, — by the utter breaking up of the 
Jewish nation, and the inpouring Gentile numbers. Others 
waited to be driven into catholicity by events ; it is his glory 
to have surrendered himself to the inspiration that implanted 
in him its principle from the first. He lived, however, to see 
a mighty growth, though not the final fruit; and the grand 
scale on which he conducts the controversy, in his Epistle to 
the Romans, by converging reasonings fetched from afar out 
of history, and aloft out of the perfections of God, and deep 
out of human nature, shows how his thought expands with 
the exigencies of experience, and advances to fill the whole 
greatness of his opportunities. 

There can be no doubt that the earliest Apostolic Chris¬ 
tianity consisted mainly in the faith of Christ’s coming again, 
“ to-day, or to-morrow, or the third day.” This event, with 
its effect on the living, was the one only point , Mr. Stanley 
conceives, on which St. Paul, in his great chapter on the Res¬ 
urrection, professed to have a distinct revelation : — 

“ On one point only he professes to have a distinct reve¬ 
lation, and that not with regard to the dead, but to the living. 
So firmly was the first generation of Christians possessed of 
the belief that they should live to see the second coming, that 
it is here assumed as a matter of course ; and their fate, as 
near and immediate, is used to illustrate the darker and more 
mysterious subject of the fate of those already dead. That 
vision of 1 the last man,’ which now seems so remote as to live 
only in poetic fiction, was to the Apostle an awful reality; 
but it is brought forward only to express the certainty that, 
even here, a change must take place, the greatest that imagi¬ 
nation can conceive.” — Yol. I. p. 398. 

That this belief, where held at all, should be paramount 
and absorbing, follows from its very nature. Accordingly, 
St. Paul, as Mr. Jowett remarks, makes even the essence of 
the Gospel to consist in it: — 

“It appears remarkable, that St. Paul should make the 
essence of the Gospel consist, not in the belief in Christ, or 


ST. TAUL AND HIS MODERN STUDENTS. 


445 


in taking up the cross of Christ, but in the hope of his 
coming again. Such, however, was the faith of the Thessa- 
lonian Church; such is the tone and spirit of the Epistle. 
Neither in the Apostolic times, nor in our own, can we re¬ 
duce all to the same type. One aspect of the Gospel is more 
outward, another more inward; one seems to connect with the 
life of Christ, another with his death ; one with his birth into 
the world, another with his coming again. If we will not 
insist on determining the times and the seasons, or on know¬ 
ing the manner how, all these different ways may lead us 
within the veil. The faith of modern times embraces many 
parts and truths ; yet we allow men, according to their indi¬ 
vidual character, to dwell on this truth or that, as more pecu¬ 
liarly appropriate to their nature. The faith of the early 
Church was simpler and more progressive, pausing in the 
same way on a particular truth, which the circumstances of 
the world or the Church brought before them.” — Vol. I. 
p. 46. 

Only it is not on “ a particular truth? but on a particular 
error , that the “ pause ” of faith was here made ; — an error 
found or implied, as our author observes, “ in almost every 
book of the New Testament; in the discourses of our Lord 
himself, as well as in the Acts of the Apostles ; in the Epis¬ 
tles of St. Paul, no less than in the Book of the Revelation.” 
Mr. Jowett does not evade the difficulty. In an admirable 
essay on this special subject, he frankly states the facts, traces 
their influence on the early Church, accepts them as among 
the limits which human conditions impose on Divine revela¬ 
tion, and shows from them, how, even in God’s highest teach¬ 
ings, he leaves much truth to be drawn forth from time and 
experience. 

“ It is a subject,” he says, “ from which the interpreter of 
Scripture would gladly turn aside. For it seems as if he 
were compelled to say at the outset, ‘that St. Paul was mis¬ 
taken, and that in support of his mistake he could appeal to 
the words of Christ himself.’ Nothing can be plainer than 
the meaning of those words, and yet they seem to be con- 
38 


446 


ST. PAUL AND HIS MODERN STUDENTS. 


tradicted by the very fact, that, after eighteen centuries, the 
world is as it was. In the words which are attributed, in the 
Epistle of St. Peter, to the unbelievers of that day, we might 
truly say that, since the fathers have fallen asleep, all things 
remain the same from the beginning. Not only do ‘ all things 
remain the same,’ but the very belief itself (in the sense in 
which it was held by the first Christians) has been ready to 
vanish away.” — Yol. I. p. 96. 

It is the infirmity of human nature —an infirmity irremov¬ 
able by inspiration — to translate eternal truth into forms of 
time, to throw color into the invisible till it can be seen, and 
look into any given infinity till finite shapes appear within it, 
and it is felt as infinite no more. The soul tries, as it were, 
every apparent path, from spiritual apprehension to scientific 
knowledge, from deep insight to clear foresight, from perception 
of what God is to vaticination of what he does; and abides 
alone with the Holy Presence, that will not tell His coun¬ 
sels, but is ever there himself. From the world of Divine 
reality into that of transient phenomena, there is no bridge 
found as yet; and only He, whose footsteps need no ground, 
can pass across. We know somewhat on both sides; but the 
chasm between vindicates its perpetuity against all invasion. 
Vision for faith ; prevision for science: — this seems to be 
the inviolable allotment of gifts by the Father of lights. And 
whoever overlooks this rule, and, inspired with discernment 
of what absolutely is, ventures to pronounce what relatively 
will be, embodies his truth in a form whence it must again 
be disengaged. The deepest spiritual insight is ineffectual 
to teach past history ; it is equally so to teach future history. 
The moment you lose sight of this fact, and expect the sons 
of God to predict for you, you confound inspiration with 
divination, and will pay the double penalty of missing the 
truth they have, and being disappointed at that which they 
have not. It is not always much otherwise with themselves; 
the light which they are, they do not see ; and that which 
shapes itself before them, and becomes the object of their 
minds, is but the shadow of human things, deepened and 


ST. PAUL AND IIIS MODERN STUDENTS. 


447 


sharpened, perhaps also misplaced, by the preternatural in¬ 
tensity. By its very inwardness and closeness to the soul’s 
centre, God’s Spirit may express itself chiefly in the uncon¬ 
scious attitudes and manifestations of the mind ; especially as it 
is these that often leave the most ineffaceable impressions of 
character upon others, and may, therefore, be the vehicle of 
a more life-giving power than any purposed teaching or more 
conscious authority. The disappointment of an avowed pre¬ 
diction, or the error of an elaborated doctrine, no more affects 
the Divine inspiration at the heart of Christianity, than the 
miscalculations and failure of the Crusades disprove their 
Providential function in the historical education of mankind. 
Mv. Jowett takes up the question from another side, and 
shows how the faith in a future life, though not directly given , 
necessarily disengaged itself in the end from the expectation 
of the coming of Christ. 

“ We naturally ask, why a future life, as distinct from this, 
was not made a part of the first preaching of the Gospel ? — 
why, in other words, the faith of the first Christians did not 
exactly coincide with our own ? There are many ways in 
which the answer to this question may be expressed. The 
philosopher will say, that the difference in the mode of 
thought of that age and our own rendered it impossible, 
humanly speaking, that the veil of sense should be altogether 
removed. The theologian will admit that Providence does 
not teach men that which they can teach themselves. While 
there are lessons which it immediately communicates, there is 
much which it leaves to be drawn forth by time and events. 
Experience may often enlarge faith; it may also correct it. 
No one can doubt that the faith and practice of the early 
Church, respecting the admission of the Gentiles, were greatly 
altered by the fact that the Gentiles themselves flocked in; 
‘the kingdom of heaven suffered violence, and the violent 
took it by force.’ In like manner, the faith respecting the 
coming of Christ was modified by the continuance of the 
world itself. Common sense suggests that those who were 
in the first ecstasy of conversion, and those who after the 


448 


ST. PAUL AND HIS MODERN STUDENTS. 


lapse of years saw the world unchanged and the fabric of the 
Church on earth rising around them, could not regard the 
day of the Lord with the same feeling While to the one 
it seemed near and present, at any moment ready to burst 
forth, to the other it was a long way off, separated by time, 
and as it were by place, a world beyond the stars, yet, strange¬ 
ly enough, also having its dwelling in the heart of man, as it 
were the atmosphere in which he lived, the mental world by 
which he was surrounded. Not at once, but gradually, did 
the cloud clear up, and the one mode of faith take the place 
of the other. Apart from the prophets, though then beyond 
them, springing up in a new and living way in the soul of 
man, corrected by long experience, as the ‘ fathers one by one 
fell asleep,’ as the hopes of the Jewish race declined, as ec¬ 
static gifts ceased, as a regular hierarchy was established 
in the Church, the belief in the coming of Christ was trans¬ 
formed from being outward to becoming inward, from being 
national to becoming individual and universal, — from being 
Jewish to becoming Christian.” — Yol. I. p. 99. 

With the Apostle Paul, however, the “ coming of Chi ist ” 
occupies the place of our “ future life ”; the living mass of 
disciples, waiting till then for the “redemption of their 
bodies,” fill the foreground and largest space in the scene; 
the rising of the dead is the subsidiary fact, needful to the 
completeness of the gift of life in Christ. On this crisis, sup¬ 
posed to be so near, his eye was exclusively fixed whenever 
he spoke of the Christian’s “ salvation ”; and ‘could he have 
been told that no such crisis would come, that, for fifty gen¬ 
erations, the present order of the world would vindicate its 
stability, we cannot imagine what shape his faith would have 
assumed; whether he would have made light of all these 
centuries, said that with the Eternal “a thousand years are 
but as one day,” and still opposed to one another the aloov 
outos and the ala>v jue'XXo) v ; or whether he would have found 
that the distinction was evanescent, and the kingdom of God 
was to be not sent hither, but to be created here; or how, in 
either case, he would have represented to himself the state of 


ST. PAUL AND IIIS MODERN STUDENTS. 


449 


the innumerable dead. These are questions which did not 
arise for him; and it were vain to conjecture his solution. 
He is engaged with other problems ; — all, indeed, having 
reference to that never doubted crisis, and arising out of its 
manifold relations, yet so treated by him as to detach them 
unawares from their origin, and give them a permanent place 
in the religious consciousness of men. Who were to be the 
subjects of that salvation? IIow were they qualified? By 
what act of God’s, and what temper of their own, to reach 
the blessing ? What present assurance had they of this ap¬ 
proaching good ? It is in dealing with these questions that 
St. Paul darts from his objective theology into the deepest 
recesses of human experience, and fetches into expression 
spiritual truths that transcend their incidental occasion, and 
will remain valid while there is a soul in man. 

In the Apostle’s habit of thought there is a certain antique 
realism which renders many of his doctrines and reasonings 
almost unpresentable before a modern imagination. With 
our sharp notions of personality, of the entire insulation of 
each mind as an individual entity, of the antithesis of inner 
self to the outer everything, we are quite out of St. Paul’s 
latitude, and shall be perpetually taking for figures and per¬ 
sonification what had a literal earnestness for him. The uni¬ 
verse is with him full of Agents that for us are only Attri¬ 
butes, — the theatre of certain real principles (i. e. principles 
having existence independent of us), that carry out their ten¬ 
dencies and history among themselves, and upon and through 
individual men, as organs or media of their activity. Thus, 
Sin is neither the mere voluntary unfaithfulness of the trans¬ 
gressor, nor the person of the tempter; but both of these; 
and that not apart from one another or alternately, but blend¬ 
ed together under the conception of a universal element of 
evil, having its objective focus in Satan and its subjective 
manifestation in man. In like manner its opposite, Righteous - 
ness (Justification), is not exclusively human rectitude, or the 
Divine justice, or ^cm-goodness substituted for genuine ; but 
less ethical than the first, less forensic than the last, and more 
38 * 


450 


ST. PAUL AND HIS MODERN STUDENTS. 


ontological than either; that element, we may say, in the es¬ 
sence of God which sets man at one with Him, and is the 
common ground of their harmonious relation. Around these 
two contrasted principles, others, equally conceived as real 
elements, and misunderstood as mere attributes or phenom¬ 
ena, group themselves on either side. With the former is 
Death , — the pair being gemini , not simply joined by decree 
of God in time, but inseparable in rerum natura , co-ordinates 
by physical necessity; and Flesh , the material or medium 
that furnishes the endowments of sense, and instinct, and 
the natural will, and affords to Sin its seat and hold upon 
us ; and Law , the discriminating light that parts the mixture 
of good and evil, and, on entering into us, brings the slumber¬ 
ing evil into the conscious state, and so makes it sin relatively 
to us, and simultaneously shows us the good without adding 
to the force for producing it. With the latter — Righteous¬ 
ness — are enjoined Life , the positive opposite of Death, and, 
like it, a function of the moral as well as the natural constitu¬ 
tion, the immortal energy inherent in sinless being; and 
Spirit , the absolute essence of God, present as the vivifying 
source of whatever transcends nature, — a faint susceptibility, 
felt only to be overmastered, in the sons of Adam, — a con¬ 
quering power, coalescing with the personality itself, in Christ 
and his disciples, — and a spontaneous flow of higher life 
seizing on converted men as organs of its charismata; and 
Faith , — the opposite of Law, — the passing out of ourselves 
to embrace unseen relations, to make conscious appropriation 
of the Spirit, and thus enter into union with Christ and God. 
Even this most subjective of all the great principles of the 
Apostle’s theology, is more than a mere private and personal 
act. As common to all the disciples, — the simultaneous gaze 
that connects them as a whole with Christ, — its single threads 
pass out and become a converging web. As something other 
than the act (of obedience) which men were under bond to 
render, it is a new institute of God, and, relatively to them, 
reads itself off as Grace. As opposed to Law, in which there 
is a delivery of the Divine will into men, it involves a draw - 


ST. PAUL AND HIS MODERN STUDENTS. 


451 


ing by Divine love of an affection out of men. And under 
all these aspects it acquires something of that indeterminate 
character, subjective and objective at once, which the associ¬ 
ated elements possess in a much higher degree. The same 
mode of thought is traceable in another form. The Apostle 
exhibits the providential scheme of the human race by dis¬ 
tributing them into two successive gentes, — the earthy or nat¬ 
ural, the heavenly or spiritual; and lays down all the predi¬ 
cates of each direct from the personal history of their re¬ 
spective heads, Adam and Christ. Whatever is true of the 
founder is considered as known of the followers; the phenom¬ 
ena of his being spread themselves inclusively to theirs. 
He is regarded, not simply as a representative individual, 
while they are the represented individuals ; but as a type of 
being within which they are contained, and which in its his¬ 
tory and vicissitudes carries them hither and thither. Con¬ 
demnation and redemption take place by Kinds, and fall on 
particular persons in virtue of their partaking of these kinds. 
Settle the attributes of the species, as found in its archetype, 
and you know what to say of individuals. It is not difficult 
to understand this way of thinking so long as the Apostle 
applies it, as a naturalist might, to the Adamic gens; and 
argues, that, being made of earthy materials (goucot), and 
having the focus of personality in o-ap£, with no adequate 
counterpoise of 7 rvev/xd, it is the seat of sin and death. But 
it is less easy to follow the Apostle’s meaning when he simi¬ 
larly identifies Christians with Christ, and transfers, or rather 
extends, to them all the great characteristics of his existence. 
They are crucified to the world. They are “ all dead ” with 
him; they are “ buried with him ” in baptism; they are “ ris¬ 
en with him ”; their “ life is hid with him in God.” And 
while this is true of living disciples, he is no less “ the first- 
fruits of them that sleep ” ; his resurrection is but the first 
pulsation of an act that next proceeds to theirs, and then com¬ 
pletes the transformation of the living. All this is meant for 
more than rhetorical analogy. With Christ, and in Christ, 
took place a re-constitution of humanity. Of the new man, 


452 


ST. PAUL AND HIS MODERN STUDENTS. 


he was the ideal and archetype ; inverting the proportions of 
crap£ and nveipa, and having his essence and personality in the 
latter, so as to render sin an unrealized possibility and death 
a transitory accident. The spirit in him which evinced its 
life-giving power in raising him from the dead, is no more 
limited to his individuality, than flesh and blood were the 
attributes of Adam only. It spreads to the whole family of 
souls, springing up into his kindred; it flows into them as 
they look up to him in faith, and are reborn to him; it repeats 
in them the fruits it produced in him, — the sacrifice of self, 
— the dying away of passion and pride, — the heavenly love 
that darts upon the wing whither the bleeding feet of con¬ 
science fail to climb, — together with many “ a gift less ex¬ 
cellent,” of healing and of tongues. The consciousness of 
this new heart, set free with Divine affections, is immediate 
evidence of their union with Christ, of the Real Presence of 
his Spirit within them, of their substantive incorporation into 
his essence, and therefore of a restored harmony and even 
oneness with God. To what extent the Apostle conceived 
that this transformation of nature, by partnership in the prop¬ 
erties of the heavenly Christ, might be carried in the living 
disciple, it is not possible to say. It amounted to “a new 
creation ”; and among the “ old things ” that had already 
“ passed away,” he probably included more than the moral 
habits and feelings of the unconverted state ; and conceived 
that the same spirit by which these died out was purifying 
also the bodily organism of the believer, and leavening it 
with antiseptic preparation for its final investiture with im¬ 
mortality. That last “ change,” like the resurrection itself, 
is not regarded as an external miracle, suddenly forced on an 
uncongenial material by mere Almightiness; but as the last 
and crowning stage of an internal development, whose princi¬ 
ple had long been active, — the emergence from all entangle¬ 
ment with “ flesh and blood ” of that spiritual element which 
in Jesus “ could not be liolden of death,” and which, dwelling 
in his disciples, already deadened and damped the vitality of 
the o-apl, and would at last quicken the c ra>pa with imperisha- 


ST. PAUL AND HIS MODERN STUDENTS. 


453 


ble life. Thus it is that “ Christ ” is not to St. Paul an his¬ 
torical individual, but a generic nature, — the archetype of a 
spiritual species, sharing his attributes and repeating his ex¬ 
perience. 

Cleared as a stage for these contending principles, the uni¬ 
verse witnesses their co-existence and antagonism from the 
beginning to the end of time. 

The grfeat drama has two main acts, and the cross of Christ 
divides them. 

The first is a descending period, accumulating the force of 
evil to a pitch of frightful triumph. The second is an as¬ 
cending period, at whose goal the last enemy is gone. 

In the opening scene of the first, extending from Adam to 
Moses, both Flesh and Spirit were there ; not yet, however, 
in conflict; but the latter sleeping as a mere susceptibility, 
and the former having its own way in the instinctive life of 
man. The state was not one which, had the comparison been 
made, would have accorded with the Divine will. It was 
therefore really, though unconsciously, a reign of Sin, as was 
proved by the presence of Sin’s inseparable sign, — the gen¬ 
erations died. 

The next scene was marked by the introduction of Law. 
The effects were, to bring into full consciousness the sin be¬ 
fore unmarked, and so make it exceedingly sinful; to set man 
at variance with himself by giving him discernment, and 
quickening his longing and his fear, without any new spring 
of force ; and actually to multiply transgressions by enumer¬ 
ating and suggesting them. 

Hence, at the close of the period, an utter rotting away of 
human society, and a confirmed moral incapacity of the 
widest sweep. The spontaneous law of nature and the writ¬ 
ten law of Moses being equally set at naught by Gentile and 
by Jew, any promises God might have given fell through, 
from human breach of the conditions. This was the moment 
seized for instituting a new creation; the promised Messiah 
of the Jews being the vehicle of its accomplishment, and the 
link of connection between the old and the new. 


454 


ST. PAUL AND HIS MODERN STUDENTS. 


All the Messianic conditions were fulfilled , — the right 
tribe, the right family, the right personal marks and charac¬ 
teristics. But they were also transcended . Along with the 
human infirmities and liabilities was present, in this arche¬ 
type of a new race, the Spirit in such full measure as to 
constitute his proper self, or at least win that centre by com¬ 
plete victory over nature and temptation and surrender of all 
he had and was to a Divine Love. As he had baffled and 
held off Sin, Death had so far no business with him. Yet 
what was to be done ? for there were conflicting claims upon 
him. Sinless in himself, he was of a sin-doomed type, the 
likeness of sinful flesh (opoicopa a-apKos apaprias), and therefore 
liable to the incidents of such a race. This was at least his 
property by nature. At the same time, he was internally 
and essentially of the opposite type; the image of God (et/cd>i/ 
rod Oeov), and so, foreign to the mortal fate, at once imperish¬ 
able and life-giving. In the person of this double nature, the 
contest between the antagonists must come to an issue; and 
while both gain their due, it is the last triumph of evil, the 
first opening of eternal good. Sin, recognizing in his suffer¬ 
ing and mortal frame its own physical counterpart and 
shadow, strikes him with death, exerting for that end its own 
“ strength ” and instrument, “ the Law.” But in thus carry¬ 
ing its course upon the guiltless, it overreached and spent 
itself; and the Law, lending itself to such an act, fell into 
self-contradiction, and disappeared in suicide. He died, 
therefore, in virtue of what was really foreign to him, as 
representative of a Sin which was not his, but which yet in¬ 
volved him, as human, in sorrow and mortality. But no 
sooner had this happened, than his “ Righteousness ” vindi¬ 
cated its power. He came out of death, which could not keep 
one so holy; and now, escaped from nationality, and placed 
aloft as the ideal of the new humanity, his vivifying spirit 
penetrates the heart of men below, and, taking them on the 
side of faith and love instead of will, kindles a divine fire 
that burns up the dead elements of the “ old man,” and 
wraps the “ heavenly places ” and the earthly in a common 


ST. PAUL AND HIS MODERN STUDENTS. 


455 


blaze. By spiritual affiliation with him, his disciples enter 
the essence of all holy and immortal natures. And so it 
comes to pass, that, through the incidence of sorrow and death 
in the wrong place, an objective power of “ righteousness ” is 
set free, that reconciles mankind with God, and restores them 
to sanctity and life. The past and the future of humanity 
were concentrated, just at the turning point between them, in 
one person ; the natural element, bearing the burden of the 
past, perished and fell away; the spiritual and divine princi¬ 
ple, containing the germ of the future, asserted its inextin¬ 
guishable life ; and from heaven evinced its self-multiplying 
power, making him only “ the first-born of many brethren.” 

Thus was the second act initiated, which also presented 
two successive scenes. During the first, the Christ was still 
in heaven; and his Spirit on earth, having the community of 
disciples for its organ or “ body,” stood in presence still of the 
opposing powers. In the world, it encroached upon the 
province of evil continually, and reclaimed a citadel here and 
there. In the Church, if it infused as yet no perfect grace, 
it left its “ earnest ” everywhere ; — ecstatic gifts and mystic 
insights ; hearts set free from pride and scorn, and brought 
to the meekness and gentleness of Christ; the self-seeking 
will surrendered; the anxious conscience led to trust; the 
tangles of thought smoothed out by a wisdom not its own ; 
and outward distinctions reduced to naught by faith, and 
hope, and charity. Nevertheless, Satan disturbed the Koa-fios 
still; and even the children of the Spirit were but prisoners 
yet, and felt the tent of nature but a poor abode. They had 
yet to wait for their full adoption ; when the tabernacle in 
which they groaned being dissolved, they should be invested 
with an unwasting frame. 

This was reserved for the final scene, the coming and the 
reign of Christ. At this culminating crisis, the antagonism 
which in Adam was as yet unfelt from the ascendency of 
nature, was to die out and cease on the absolute triumph of 
the Spirit. Physically, death was to disappear ; the departed 
being finally reinstated in life, and the living “ clothed upon ” 


456 


ST. PAUL AND HIS MODERN STUDENTS. 


with their new garment ere yet they were stripped of the 
old. Morally, the remnant of inner strife and temptation, 
that even the faith of saints might leave unappeased, would 
pass away, aspiration be harmonized with achieving power, 
and in conscious presence of the objects of deepest affection 
and reverence the sighs of separation would cease. As soon 
as resistance was over, and there was nothing to subdue, the 
separate function of God’s redeeming and sanctifying Spirit 
would find no work; “ the kingdom would be resigned to the 
Father”; “the Son would be subject”; and “the Trinity 
would cease.” 

Whether the Apostle’s vision of trust was really of univer¬ 
sal success, and included even those who should still be found 
astray at last, is a question difficult of direct determination ; 
but not very doubtful when tried by the general scope of his 
doctrine. Mr. Jowett’s judgment, given in the following pas¬ 
sage, truly seizes, we think, the feeling of St. Paul. The 
author is commenting on the parallel drawn between Adam 
and Christ, especially on the words, “ As by one man’s trans¬ 
gression sin entered into the world, and death by sin,” and has 
shown that they do not teach any imputation of Adam’s sin. 

“ It is hardly necessary to ask the further question, what 
meaning we can attach to the imputation of sin and guilt 
which are not our own, and of which we are unconscious. 
God can never see us other than we really are, or judge us 
without reference to all our circumstances and antecedents. 
If we can hardly suppose that he would allow a fiction of 
mercy to be interposed between ourselves and him, still less 
can we imagine that he would interpose a fiction of ven¬ 
geance. If he requires holiness before he will save, much 
more, may we say in the Apostle’s form of speech, will he 
require sin before he dooms us to perdition. Nor can any¬ 
thing be in spirit more contrary to the living consciousness 
of sin of which the Apostle everywhere speaks, than the 
conception of sin as dead, unconscious evil, originating in the 
act of an individual man, in the world before the flood. 

“ On the whole, then, we are led to infer that in the Au- 


ST. TAUL AND HIS MODERN STUDENTS. 


457 


gustinian interpretation of this passage, even if it agree with 
the letter of the text, too little regard has been paid to the 
extent to which St. Paul uses figurative language, and to the 
manner of his age in interpretations of the Old Testament. 
The difficulty of supposing him to be allegorizing the narrative 
of Genesis is slight, in comparison with the difficulty of sup¬ 
posing him to countenance a doctrine at variance with our 
first notions of the moral nature of God. 

“ But when the figure is dropped, and allowance is made 
for the manner of the age, the question once more returns 
upon us, — ‘ What is the Apostle’s meaning ? ’ He is arguing, 
we see, nar avdpconov, and taking his stand on the received 
opinions of his time. Do we imagine that his object is no 
other than to set the seal of his authority on these traditional 
beliefs ? The whole analogy, not merely of the writings of 
St. Paul, but of the entire New Testament, would lead us to 
suppose that his object was not to reassert them, but to teach, 
through them, a new and nobler lesson. The Jewish Rabbis 
would have spoken of the first and second Adam; but which 
of them would have made the application of the figure to all 
mankind ? A figure of speech it remains still, an allegory 
after the manner of that age and country, but yet with no 
uncertain or ambiguous interpretation. It means that ‘ God 
hath made of one blood all the nations of the earth ’; that 
‘ he hath concluded all under sin, that he may have mercy 
upon all ’; that life answers to death, the times before to the 
times after the revelation of Jesus Christ. It means that we 
are one in a common sinful nature, which, even if it be not 
derived from the sin of Adam, exists as really as if it were. 
It means that we shall be made one in Christ by the grace 
of God, in a measure here, more fully and perfectly in anoth¬ 
er world. More than this it also means, and more than lan¬ 
guage can express, but not the weak and beggarly elements 
of Rabbinical tradition. We may not encumber St. Paul 
with the things which he ‘ destroyed.’ What it means further 
is not to be attained by theological distinctions, but by putting 
off the old man and putting on the new man.” — Vol. H. p. 166. 
39 


458 


ST. PAUL AND HIS MODERN STUDENTS. 


On surveying tlie picture of time and the history of human¬ 
ity that lay beneath St. Paul’s eye, the question naturally 
arises, What is its significance and value for us ? Manifestly 
not those of an absolute guide through the labyrinthine depths 
of the Divine counsels. “ We can scarcely imagine what 
would have been the feeling of St. Paul, could he have fore¬ 
seen that later ages would look not to the faith of Abraham 
in the Law, but to the Epistle to the Romans, as the highest 
authority on the doctrine of justification by faith ; or, that they 
would have regarded the allegory of Hagar and Sarah, in the 
Galatians, as a difficulty to be resolved by the inspiration of 
the Apostle.” * We cannot say of him less than Mr. Jowett 
says of a greater than Paul, that in many places “ his teaching 
is on a level with the modes of thought of his age.” (I. 97.) 
The ultimate point towards which all the lines of his expec¬ 
tations converged, and all the history of the past appeared to 
gaze, we know to have had no existence where he placed it; 
and as the whole scheme was laid out to lead up to this, it 
might seem to disappear as the fabric of a dream. Yet it is 
not so; and the very fear implies that we look in the wrong 
place for the permanent amid the evanescent in the Gospel. 
Religion — revealed or unrevealed — is no production of 
the systematizing intellect, — inspired or uninspired. The 
workings of constructive thought follow, not lead it. Their 
function is not creative, but simply adaptive; — to find a settle¬ 
ment and orderly method of being and growing for some new 
principle of divine life, or for some old principle in an altered 
scene ; to ward off from it uncongenial elements, remove 
dead matter that chokes it, and surround it with conditions 
whence it may weave its organism around it and send deep 
roots into the mellowed soil of humanity. Divine truth is 
the coming of God to man, pathless and traceless: theologic 
thought is the retrogressive search of man after God, not by 
“ His ways which are past finding out,” and invisible as 
night, but necessarily by such tracks as the age has opened 
and another age may close or change. 


* Jowett, II. 142. 



ST. PAUL AND HIS MODERN STUDENTS. 


459 


The manifestation of supernatural realities to the human 
soul involves so much which is mysterious and unique, that 
only under great qualification can we compare it with the 
known mental processes. But were we to conceive of it less 
by the analogy of scientific discovery, and more by that of 
artistic apprehension, many an embarrassment would be 
saved. In a work of high art, you give a Phidias or a Raf- 
faelle his subject; he necessarily takes it from that which 
stirs the heart of his time, and has a solemnity for his own f 
and you do not find fault that there is mythology in the 
group, or Mariolatry in the picture. Through the concep¬ 
tions of one time there speaks a feeling for all; and the rep¬ 
resentation may be immortal, when the thing represented 
has long been historical. Nor is it that it only reflects 
honor on its author’s name. It springs from an inner har¬ 
mony with the very heart of things, and it gives a new 
expressiveness to life and nature, and leaves behind a self- 
luminous spot in the. world, where there was “ gross dark¬ 
ness ” before. Hence it looks into the eyes, and finds the 
soul of one generation after another; and, amid the change 
of materials and the succession of schools, keeps alive the 
very sense by which alone “ materials ” can be wielded and 
“ schools ” exist. With just the same result do the. accidental 
and temporary media fall away from early Christianity; dis¬ 
engaging a residuary spirit that takes up the life of all times, 
touches a consciousness else unreached, and breathes upon 
the face of things, till the meanings writ there with invisible 
ink come into clearness before the eye. If it pleases God, 
instead of spreading at our feet the things to be seen, rather 
to quicken our vision till we see them where they are, it is 
revelation all the same, only deeper and more various; not 
an incident of position, but a power that can migrate in place 
and time, and read the Providential perspective everywhere. 
This profounder insight into divine relations it has been the 
especial office of St. Paul to awaken; and none the less that 
the flashes by which he gives it are incidental, and do not 
proceed from the Rabbinic lamp which he holds up to his 


460 


ST. PAUL AND HIS MODERN STUDENTS. 


apocalyptic pictures. Indeed, it is he, in great measure, that 
has carried Christendom into regions other than his own. 
His thought is everywhere penetrated with an intense heat, 
leavened with lightning, that fuses the mass containing it, 
and runs off alive for other media to hold it. The revelation 
to him of Christ in heaven set in action all the resources of 
his nature, and gave them a preternatural tension. The 
sentiments which found satisfaction, the intimations which 
came into expression, in his form of doctrine, are now for 
ever human , fixed in the self-knowledge of men by his faith¬ 
ful words, and sure to transmigrate into other forms, when 
their first embodiment will hold them no more. And so much 
is the Apostle’s later exposition of his hope divested of what 
is special to himself, that to all ages since it has struck upon 
the ear of mourners along with the very toll of the funeral 
bell; and though often indistinct to their mind, it has jarred 
with no falsehood on their heart, but sounded like an anthem 
in the dark, — great music and dim words. It needed only 
time and events to transmute the doctrine into that of a future 
life. For it included — in order to meet the case of those 
who had “ fallen asleep ” — the conception of a path, through 
death before the time, “ to depart and be with Christ ” ; only 
that this was the minor provision, the by-path of the early 
few. Reopened, however, as it always was when a disciple 
passed away, it became an evermore familiar track; and ex¬ 
perience had but to negative the opposite direction by leaving 
it untraced, in order that the upward track should become the 
via sacra of human faith. And can any one doubt what the 
justification by faith means, when construed into the language 
of universal experience? It means that God wants more 
from us, and also less, than the anxious will can do; more, 
because he wants ourselves; less, because he does not want 
our niceties of work. It means that we are called to spiritual 
heights we strive in vain to climb; that the most patient feet, 
step after step upon the ground, will but stand upon the 
earthly mountains after all; and it is the fiery chariot of love 
and trust that must bear us into heaven* It means that there 


ST. PAUL AND HIS MODERN STUDENTS. 


461 


is an affectionateness in God that looks to what we are, 
rather than what we do, and more readily speaks to us of 
communion than of obedience. True, this is but another 
way of saying what our religion elsewhere more ethically 
expresses, that God requires our perfect service, and yet has 
forgiveness for what is imperfect. But this statement, though 
it means also that heaven is open to the pure, intent, and 
single heart, touches a spring less deep and strong. It 
divides the integral and living fact, even in regard to God, 
by describing it as a demand of the whole, and then a sub¬ 
traction of a part; and so exhibiting it rather as a dissolution 
of justice, than as truth and wholeness of love. And the 
Pauline doctrine appeals with far more immediate power to 
human consciousness, especially to that third of mankind 
whom a fervid enthusiastic mind renders little accessible to 
the cold solemnities of duty. And, finally, if we are insensi¬ 
ble to the grandeur of St. Paul’s teaching as to the univer¬ 
sality of the Gospel, it is not more because it is entangled 
with the question of Jew and Gentile, than because the sen¬ 
timent has become the common atmosphere of Christendom, 
and we feel not its freshness, because it blows not on us as a 
breeze, but only as our breath of life. Let Mr. Jowett re¬ 
move from us the spell of our indifference. 

“ Let us turn aside for a moment to consider how great this 
thought was in that age and country; a thought which the 
wisest of men had never before uttered, which even at the 
present hour we imperfectly realize, which is still leavening 
the world, and shall do so until the whole is leavened, and 
the differences of races, of nations, of castes, of religions, of 
languages, are fully done away. Nothing could seem a less 
natural or obvious lesson in the then state of the world; 
nothing could be more at variance with experience, or more 
difficult to carry out into practice. Even to us it is hard to 
imagine that the islander of the South Seas, the pariah of 
India, the African in his worst estate, is equally with our¬ 
selves God’s creature. But in the age of St. Paul, how great 
must have been the difficulty of conceiving barbarian and 
39 * 



462 


ST. PAUL AND HIS 3I0DERN STUDENTS. 


Scythian, bond and free, — all colors, forms, races, and lan¬ 
guages, — alike and equal in the presence of God who made 
them! The origin of the human race was veiled in a deep¬ 
er mystery to the ancient world, and the lines which separat¬ 
ed mankind were harder and stronger; yet the ‘ love of 
Christ constraining’ bound together in its cords those most 
separated by time or distance; those who were the types of 
the most extreme differences of which the human race is 
capable. 

“ The thought of this brotherhood of all mankind, the 
great family on earth, not only implies that all men have cer¬ 
tain rights and claims at our hands; it is also a thought of 
peace and comfort. First, it leads us to rest in God, not as 
selecting us because he had a favor unto us, but as infinitely 
just to all mankind. To think of ourselves, or our Church, 
or our age, as the particular exceptions of his mercy, is not a 
thought of comfort, but of perplexity. Secondly, it links our 
fortunes with those of men in general, and gives us the same 
support in reference to our eternal destiny, that we receive 
from each other in a narrow sphere in the concerns of daily 
life. Thirdly, it relieves us from all anxiety about the con¬ 
dition of other men, of friends departed, of those ignorant of 
the Gospel, of those of a different form of faith from our own, 
knowing that God, who has thus far lifted up the veil, 1 will 
justify the circumcision through faith, and the uncircumcision 
by faith ’; the Jew who fulfils the law, and the Gentile who 
does by nature the things contained in the law.” — Vol. II. p. 
126. 

What the doctrine of universality in the Divine govern¬ 
ment was to that age, — as new and transporting, — is in our 
own “ the clear perception of the moral nature of God, and of 
his infinite truth and justice.” This is one of the many deep 
sayings, sad and wise, quietly dropped by our author in a se¬ 
ries of disquisitions, that show, among other things, how well 
he understands its scope. Everywhere his care is to disengage 
Christianity from the theological conceptions fastened on it by 
a coarser age; and, having restored the purity of its moral 


ST. TAUL AND HIS MODERN STUDENTS. 


4G3 


vision, to enlarge its horizon to the whole extent of modern 
knowledge and experience. Penetrating beneath the figures 
natural to St. Paul, the very changes of which show them 
to be figures, he finds that nothing can be more abhorrent 
from the Apostle’s thought than the doctrine of “ satisfaction,” 
which is hunted down, in every form, with exhaustive and in¬ 
dignant logic; that even the analogy of sacrifice “ rather 
shows us what the death of Christ was not, than what it 
was ” ; and that to draw us into union with Christ, to fix 
our eye on his pure self-renunciation as “ the greatest moral 
act ever done in this world,” to keep us in a mood that har¬ 
monizes our trust in God with our distrust of ourselves, and 
to suggest more than it can explain of hope and peace to a 
reconciled world, are the real functions, as of his death, so of 
all the stages of his existence. This pure type of faith emer¬ 
ges, we venture to affirm, without straining the rights of the 
interpreter. The rest and freedom it gives to the mind is 
singularly evident in the fine essay on Natural Religion. 
The author sets forth from the Christian centre, and, conscious¬ 
ly marking where he passes the boundary of the apostolic 
view, surveys and brings to its religious place the whole out¬ 
lying realm of nature, history, and life, that was unknown to 
Scripture, but is fact to us. The great Gentile religions, now 
discriminated and interpreted, and ascertained to follow cer¬ 
tain laws of development; the breadth in philosophies, purer 
and brighter as history passed on ; the Natural Religion, 
which is the counterpart of these in Christian times, and holds 
its place by the side of revelation ; and the ordinary state of 
character in morally good but unspiritual persons, (state of 
“nature” rather than of “grace,”)—are reviewed and esti¬ 
mated with a breadth of observation and a delicacy of reflec¬ 
tion singularly impressive. Indeed, the literature of religious 
philosophy affords few nobler productions than this essay. 
With how true a hand and bright a touch is the following pic¬ 
ture drawn! We will but hang it up in our reader’s imagina¬ 
tion, and leave him to commune with it alone. 

“ It is impossible not to observe that innumerable persons, 


4G4 


ST. PAUL AND HIS MODERN STUDENTS. 


— may we not say the majority of mankind ? — who have a 
belief in God and immortality, have nevertheless hardly any 
consciousness of the peculiar doctrines of the Gospel. They 
seem to live aloof from them in the routine of business or of 
pleasure, ‘ the common life of all men,’ not without a sense of 
right, and a rule of truth and honesty, yet insensible to what 
our Saviour meant by taking up the cross and following him, 
or what St. Paul meant by ‘ being one with Christ/ They 
die without any great fear or lively hope; to the last more 
interested about the least concerns of this world than about the 
greatest of another. They have never in their whole lives 
experienced the love of God, or the sense of sin, or the need 
of forgiveness. Often they are remarkable for the purity of 
their morals ; many of them have strong and disinterested 
attachments, and quick human sympathies ; sometimes a sto¬ 
ical feeling of uprightness, or a peculiar sensitiveness to dis¬ 
honor. It would be a mistake to say they are without relig¬ 
ion. They join in its public acts ; they are offended at pro¬ 
faneness or impiety; they are thankful for the blessings of 
life, and do not rebel against its misfortunes. Such men meet 
us at every turn. They are those whom we know and asso¬ 
ciate witij; honest in their dealings, respectable in their lives, 
decent in their conversation. The Scripture speaks to us of 
two classes, represented by the Church and the world, the 
wheat and the tares, the sheep and the goats, the friends and 
enemies of God. We cannot say in which of the two divis¬ 
ions we should find a place for them. 

“ The picture is a true one, and, if we change the light by 
which we look at it, may be a resemblance of ourselves no less 
than of other men. Others will include most of us in the 
same circle in which we are including them. What shall we 
say to such a state, common as it is to both us and them ? 
The fact that we are considering is not the evil of the world, 
but the neutrality of the world, the indifference of the Avorld, 
the inertness of the world. There are multitudes of men and 
women everywhere who have no peculiarly Christian feelings, 
to whom, except for the indirect influence of Christian insti- 


ST. PAUL AND HIS MODERN STUDENTS. 


465 


tutions, the fact that Christ died on the cross for their sins has 
made no difference; and who have, nevertheless, the common 
sense of truth and right almost equally with true Christians. 
You cannot say of them, 4 There is none that doeth good; no, 
not one.’ The other tone of St. Paul is more suitable: 
4 When the Gentiles that know not the law do by nature the 
things contained in the law, these not knowing the law are a 
law unto themselves.’ So of what we commonly term the 
world, as opposed to those who make a profession of Chris¬ 
tianity, we must not shrink from saying, 4 When men of the 
world do by nature whatsoever things are honest, whatso¬ 
ever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, 
these, not being conscious of the grace of God, do by nature 
what can only be done by his grace.’ Why should we make 
them out worse than they are ? We must cease to speak evil 
of them ere they will judge fairly of the characters of relig¬ 
ious men. That, with so little recognition of His personal re¬ 
lation to them, God has not cast them off, is a ground of hope 
rather than of fear, — of thankfulness, not of regret.”— Yol. 
II. p. 416. 


SIN: WHAT IT IS, WIIAT IT IS NOT. 


“ Now the end of the commandment is Charity, out of a pure heart, and of 
a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned.” *— 1 Timothy i. 5. 

The Apostle gives us here a very simple formula of 
Christian perfection. He was not fond of long lists of the 
virtues, such as the moral philosophers draw up; and though 
he does sometimes pass through a series, it is with a peculiar 
result. Look at any book upon human ethics, and you are 
astonished at the number of qualities that go to make up a 
good man : the ramifications of duty seem never to terminate : 
you scarcely know how a soul like ours can hold so much: 
the further the author proceeds in his enumeration, the less 
does he seem able to stop, — his divisions breaking into sub¬ 
divisions, and the subdivisions opening new varieties, — till 
life appears to pulverize itself under his definitions, and be¬ 
come an infinite complexity of moral detail. St. Paul’s enu¬ 
merations, on the contrary, instead of running down into 
multitude, run up into unity; each term is apt to be larger 
than its predecessor; he seems impatient of scattering his 
exhortations, as if each had a business of its own, and rather 
forces them as he proceeds into denser compression, till he 
flings out some term of power that holds them all. The 
graces with him do not present themselves apart, like garden 
plants that may be tended and watered one by one ; but all 
on the same organism, as the leaves and the blossoms of a 
single shrub. He felt that in reality the virtues do not add 
themselves up and subscribe to the final result of a holy soul: 




sin: what it is, what it is not. 


4G7 


but the one simple soul lives itself out into the direction of 
all the virtues ; and there is a certain mood, a temper, a 
climate of the soul, which grows everything beautiful at once, 
and without which, while one adornment is elaborately nursed, 
the rest will be apt to droop and die. This blessed and pro¬ 
ductive mood, felt to be one thing , ought to have one name: 
and the Apostle calls it Charity or Love ; and presents it 
sometimes as the greatest of graces, sometimes as the unity 
of them all. 

But this simple grace is to have a triple source. In the 
midst of the garden of the Lord the Apostle plants but a sol¬ 
itary tree of life, — his divine and fruitful Charity. Only it 
must be nursed by the threefold root, of which should any 
part be wanting, the beauty of the form and the healing of 
the leaves will soon be gone. “ Charity out of a pure heart, 

— and a good conscience, — and faith unfeigned.” The 
Heart, the Conscience, the Faith, must all be right; and it is 
no Pauline Charity that is not sustained by concurrence of 
them all. And, observe the order. In the centre, striking 
its fibres deepest down into the substance of our world, is the 
Conscience , the Moral element of life ; and on either side, 
held to their due balance by its intermediate power, we find 
the Heart , — the fresh human affections , — and the Faith,— 
the heavenly trust and aspirations , — of our nature. Ten¬ 
derness and pity on the one hand, devotion and hope on the 
other, are to hold on to the sense of duty in the midst; and 
there only will a noble and majestic Love arise, casting no 
baneful shade upon the earth, and in its branches giving no 
shelter but to birds that sing the songs of heaven. A charity, 
therefore, that flows only from the genial heart, that looks 
•with kindly complacency on all things and persons, and with 
a sort of animal sympathy licks every sore of humanity that 
lies at its gate; — this is not the “ end of the commandment ”; 

— for it has in it no moral, no religious element: it condemns 
nothing; it worships nothing: its eye neither flashes in re¬ 
buke, nor lifts itself in prayer: it is sensitive to suffering, not 
to sin: and, if it can but wipe out pain, will do it even upon 



4G8 


sin: what it is, what it is not. 


guilty terms, and charm away a God-sent remorse as freely 
as it would an anguish of the innocent. And, on the other 
hand, a charity that flows only from the sincerity of faith, 
and limits itself to the fellowship of belief; that feels perhaps 
for many, but only with a few; whose warmest sympathies 
are little else than a partnership of antipathies ; that transfers 
to the infinite God the narrowness of its own consecrated 
circle, reduces the universe to a temple of orthodoxy, and 
turns the Heaven of Immortals into the May-meeting of a 
sect; — this also misses “ the end of the commandment ” : for 
it abuses the true power of religion over life, and flings in the 
branch of faith only to embitter, instead of sweeten, the waters 
of natural affection; it blinds and bewilders the moral dis¬ 
cernment, overlooks undeniable nobleness, and glorifies not a 
little meanness; and, applying its perverted admiration to the 
past as well*as the present, crowds the statue-gallery of his¬ 
tory with ill-favored and questionable saints, whose features 
have so grown to the mould and pressure of a creed, that 
they look like casts of an abstract theology, more than em¬ 
blems of a living humanity. Take away the wisdom of Con¬ 
science ; and Charity, surrendered to mere affection, will fail 
to see sin where it is ; or, constricted by Faith, will suppose 
it where it is not. Both errors will shape themselves into 
deliberate doctrines, deviating on either side from the simple 
creed of our moral nature and of Christ. Let us look for a 
few moments at the central truth on this matter; and then 
glance from it at the lateral heresies. 

The central truth may be described under the phrase, The 
Personal nature of sin. In affirming this, I mean both that 
each man is a person , arid not a thing ; and that his sin is his 
own, and not another’s. If there is anything within the com¬ 
pass of heaven and earth which we can be said to know from 
ourselves, and to have no need that another should tell us, it 
is the nature of sin. There is no arrogance, — there is only 
sorrowful confession, — in protesting that this is a matter on 
which we cannot be mistaken. It is the nearest of all things 
to us; the shadow that follows us where we go, and stays 



sin: wiiat it is, what it is not. 


4G9 


with us when we sit; the clinging presence that penetrates 
the very folds of our nature, and is known only from within, 
where its fibres strike and draw their nutriment. No external 
observer, though he have the divination of a prophet or the 
glance of an archangel, can add one iota to our insight into 
this sad fact, unless by sharpening our sensibility to feel and 
interpret it better for ourselves; or by any testimony, any 
miracle, take one line away of the handwriting of God that 
burns and flashes on the inner walls of the soul. Here at 
least our apprehensions are first-hand; and to trust them, to 
cast out as Satan what tampers with them or contradicts them, 
is not scepticism, but faith, — not infidelity, but faithfulness 
to the ever-living Word of God. What the finger of Heaven 
has written, neither the tapestries of ancient theology nor the 
varnish of the newest philosophy can permanently hide ; the 
light is alive, and will eat through, clearing its everlasting 
warning and consuming our perishable work. 

What then does this first and last revelation declare human 
sin to be ? In the moments when we know it best, — when we 
cover our face because we can hide our transgression no more, 

— when we cannot bear the placid silence of things, and cry in 
our agony, “ Smite us, O Lord, but tell us what we have done,” 

— does He not answer us, “ You have abused your trust; 
I showed you a better, and you have taken the worse; I drew 
you by a secret reverence to the nobler, and you have sunk 
by inclination to the baser; I gave you a will in the image 
of my own, free to realize the good, and you have yielded 
yourself captive to the evil; therefore have you a burden 
now to bear, that none can lift off, — a burden which you 
will feel it more faithful and wholesome to carry than to lose.” 
This is surely the tone in which the voice of God’s Holy Spirit 
speaks to us when we have grieved it: and if we believe it 
not, I know not whither we should go; it is the highest 
oracle of truth below the skies, having authority more posi¬ 
tive even than the eye that assures us of the sun above us, 
and the feet that tell us of the earth beneath. 

According to this oracle, then, the essence of the sin lies in 
40 


470 sin: wiiat it is, what it is not. 

the conscious free choice of the worse in presence of a better no 
less possible. And to make us guilty in its commission three con¬ 
ditions are required ;— (1.) Our mind must be solicited by at 
least two competing propensities ; (2.) We must be aware that 
of these one is worthy and has a claim upon us, and the other 
not; (3.) It must be left to us to determine ourselves to either 
of these, and we must not be delivered over by foreign causes 
to the one or to the other. Take away any of these condi¬ 
tions, and guilt becomes impossible. If the mind has not the 
option of two propensities, but is possessed of only one, that 
single impulse, being its entire stock and constituting its only 
possibility, affords no scope for good or ill, and leaves the 
being a mere creature of instinct. Or if, while rival passions 
struggle at his heart, he knows no difference among them, or 
only this, that some are pleasanter than others, then also he 
is blameless, though he takes only what he likes. If, finally, 
while he is drawn by conflicting tendencies and taught to 
regard some as his temptations, and solemnly set in the midst 
to choose, the whole appearance of option turns out a sem¬ 
blance and a pretence, and the matter is long ago determined 
outside of him and now only performs the ceremony of pass¬ 
ing through him., — then, as before, he is irreproachable: the 
strife within him is the illusion of mimic passions wrestling 
for a dreamer’s soul; and while the tragic agony goes on 
within, — a dance of fiends, a rescue of angels, — he is 
stretched all the while sleeping on the bed of nature, and 
cannot wake but to find remorse and responsibility a dream. 

Accordingly, whenever we want to make excuse for our 
wrong-doing, the false plea takes the form of a denial of one 
of these conditions. “ Blame me not,” we say, “ for I knew of 
no other course ”; or, “ I did not think it signified which I 
did ” ; or, “ I saw it all, but I could not help it” Often the 
gnawings of self-reproach are felt upon the heart at the very 
instant that these excuses escape the lips. But sometimes 
they are the suggestions of sincere self-deception, and proceed 
from men who are their own dupes : and whenever this is the 
case, the sense of responsibility is entirely dissipated ; remorse 


sin: what it is, what it is not. 471 

is extinguished; the confession of guilt is turned into com¬ 
plaint of a misfortune; and the offender considers himself 
rather as the injured of nature than the insurgent against 
God. These excuses then must be Avholly excluded, if the 
sanctity of the moral life is to be preserved. They are the 
various forms under which the personal nature of sin may be 
denied. They all assert that the person either did not con- 
' tain within him the requisite conditions, or was hemmed in 
by natural preventives, of true obligation. Whoever offers 
us such pleas is justly regarded as self-condemned, and in¬ 
deed as presenting a sadder spectacle in his defence than in 
his transgression. Nor are they improved in their character 
when they are expanded from excuses of individuals into 
doctrines of churches ; for they explain away the essence of 
sin, and leave us without intelligible faith in anything holy 
in heaven or on earth. Thus: — 

Whoever maintains that the human heart is invariably 
wicked, and can think no thought and prompt no act, except 
such as are odious to God, mistakes the whole nature of 
moral obligation, and virtually excludes it from the entire 
system of things. Confront this assertion w r ith the facts of 
life, and ask what it really means. Do you mean, I would 
say to its defender, that, whenever two principles contend for 
the mastery in a man’s mind, he always abandons himself 
to the lower ? — that no one, in short, was ever known to resist 
a temptation ? Such a position is surely too bold for the par¬ 
adox of cynicism itself, in a world where there are many in 
want that do not steal, and in suffering that do not complain; 
where a Pericles could administer the revenues of a state, 
yet die without having added to his little patrimony; and a 
Socrates could live pure amid corruption, and truthful amid 
lies, and die the martyr of injustice rather than offend his 
reverence for law ; where not a school nor a family can be 
found that has not its annals and anecdotes of conscience. 
You allow, therefore, that victors there have been in many a 
temptation. Did it make then no difference to the sentiments 
of God respecting them whether they were victors or van- 


472 sin: what it is, wiiat it is not. 

quished? Was it neutral to him whether they nobly held 
their post, or basely betrayed it ? Then you simply deny the 
holiness of God ; for you allow the greatest contrasts of char¬ 
acter on earth, with no responsive feeling, no variety of esti¬ 
mate, in heaven; and make our human discernment, our 
natural admirations, more susceptible as moral barometers 
than the Omniscient Perception. Or will you say that, al¬ 
though men differ in moral effort, and withstand temptation ' 
in various degrees, and the Infinite Eye sees through the 
whole history with unerring exactitude, yet the entire scale of 
human character lies below the point of Divine acceptable¬ 
ness, and in the view of perfect purity is equivalent to mere 
variety of guilt ? Then do you deny again, only with a 
change of form, the personal nature of sin; for you try the 
soul by the law of another nature, and not her own, — by a 
law beyond her ken or beyond her power; and while she is 
striving to be faithful to her best thought against the seduc¬ 
tions of the worse, — in which alone the essence of all goodness 
dwells, — you tell her that her God despises a conflict so far 
down, and that “ this people that knoweth not his law,” how¬ 
ever true to their own, “ is cursed.” What is this but to 
make Moral Excellence something quite different in heaven 
and on earth ? — not veracity, not justice, not purity of thought, 
not self-sacrificing love; nothing that here makes our hearts 
burn within us as we look at the dear face of long-tried 
friends or saintly strangers, or leaving the Jerusalem of the 
noisy present pace the quiet road of history, talking by the 
way with the saviours of nations and the prophets of a 
world; — not this, but some hidden charm that finds neither 
place nor answer in our souls ; so that the God who loves it 
leaves us herein without a point of sympathy with him, or a 
possibility of approach. In that case, he is a Being without 
moral perfection ; for, however you may apply to him a circle 
of holy names , the things you denote by them are a set 
of unknown quantities bearing no relation to our types of 
thought. Or, finally, do you allege that the distinctions of 
character are not entirely different in heaven and on earth; 


sin: what it is, what it is not. 


473 


only that through all their varieties in the natural man there 
is interfused a certain invariable taint, an irremovable tinge 
of guilt, — a stain of self \ a thought of 'pride , a want of faith ? 
Even were it so, still, if this be the constant coloring of the 
soul, pervading it by nature and not personally incurred, it is 
but a sad condition under which it is given us to work out 
our problem, and not any unfaithfulness in dealing with it as 
it comes : it is an inherent incapacity, which, however unlike 
the beauty of God’s holiness, he can no more regard with 
penal disapproval, than he can hate the deformed or persecute 
the blind. 

Again, whoever teaches that men are, through and through, 
the creatures of circumstance, with no more voice as to their 
character than as to their birth, but are the predestined pro¬ 
ducts of nature, working partly within them and partly with¬ 
out, — no less surely insults all moral convictions, and denies 
the reality of duty. For he abolishes entirely the distinction 
between a person and a thing; and conceives of every man 
as a mere growth or development from the physiology of the 
universe, no more responsible for his place in the scale of 
excellence, than the plant which, according to its seed and 
soil, becomes the hyssop of the wall, the lily of the field, or 
tlie stately cedar of Lebanon. All moral ideas vanish in¬ 
stantly at the touch of this doctrine; and the solemn language 
on which Law and Conscience have stamped their venerable 
impress, and ruled among the nations “ by the grace of God,” 
is defaced in the revolutionary mint of fatalism, and made 
current with the superscription of a pretended equality where 
all are low, and liberty where none is free. It is quite clear, 
that, if the soul has no originating causality, but in every step 
she takes is simply disposed of and bespoken by agencies 
provided and set in train, without any question asked of her, 
she can have no duties , she can win no deserts; she can 
incur no guilt , merit no punishment; she is deluded in her 
remorse , and suffers a vain torture in esteeming herself an 
alien from God. All that remains is this : that by natural 
laws there may be pain consequent, and known to be conse- 
40 * 






474 


sin: wiiat it is, wiiat it is not. 


quent, on some of the directions which we may take; and it 
is at our peril that we enter on these paths. But so is it at 
our peril if we go up in a balloon, or put to sea in a small 
boat to save a drowning crew. You can get nothing out of this 
consideration but more or less of Prudence ; hope of happi¬ 
ness, fear of suffering, can consecrate nothing as a Duly , but 
only present it as interest; and if a man chooses to disregard 
his interest and risk the result, I know not who, in heaven 
or earth, can fell him with authority that he has no right to 
do it, or can say more to him than that he is a fool in his 
folly. Who on these terms could cast himself, in tears of 
penitence, upon the bosom of Infinite Mercy, and sob out his 
prayer that he might be reconciled to God ? Who would 
ever tremble beneath the lash of a fiery reproach, and own, 
as it quivered over him, that there was justice in the terror 
of its look ? Rather must the sinner feel himself the victim 
of a cruel doom; whom it is as little suitable to punish, as to 
chastise the patient in fever, or torture the cripple in the 
street. A doctrine which reduces duty to interest, retribu¬ 
tion to discipline, guilt to disease, holiness to symmetry and 
good health, and God to the neutral source of all things good 
and ill; — which frightens us with fears we may defy, but 
awes us with no authority we can revere; w r hich pities iniqui¬ 
ty and smiles on goodness, but only in order to patronize en¬ 
joyment ; — whose faith in human nature is a reliance on the 
ultimate docility of the wild animal man; and whose worship 
of God is taken, like a morning walk, for the sake of exer¬ 
cise ;—is so alien from the whole spirit of religion, and such an 
affront to the first instincts of conscience, that it can only es¬ 
cape indignant condemnation by withdrawing altogether into 
the sphere of natural history, and quitting as a foreign prov¬ 
ince the domain — whose language it corrupts — of Morals 
and of Faith. 

Finally, those who teach that guilt and merit, with their 
penalties and rewards, can be transferred, deny in the direct- 
est way the personal nature of Sin. That men should find a 
foreign remedy for their perpetrated wickedness, is not less 


sin: what it is, wiiat it is not. 475 

shocking than that they should trace it to a foreign source. If 
they know what it is at all, they feel it to be inalienably their 
own; which none could give them and which none can take 
away. And nothing is more amazing than that good Chris¬ 
tians, who seem truly cast down in humiliation, oppressed with 
the sense of their short-comings, penetrated with the sadness 
of baffled aspiration, — and who therefore, one would think, 
must really have a consciousness of the personality of sin, 
and know how it is chargeable only on their individual will, — 
can yet obtain relief by flying, as it is said, to the cross, and 
persuading themselves that the evil has been stayed and cured 
by transactions wholly outside themselves, and belonging to 
the history of another being. What can possibly be meant 
by the statement that Christ has borne the punishment, some 
eighteen hundred years ago, of your sins and mine, — of people 
non-existent then, and therefore non-sinful ? Can the punish¬ 
ment precede the sin ? Can it be inflicted and gone through 
before it is even determined whether the sin will be perpetrat¬ 
ed at all ? Or can merely 'potential sin, which may never be¬ 
come actual, be dealt with at ages distant, and its accounts be 
settled ere it arise ? If so, what is the death of Christ but the 
provisory accumulation of a fund beforehand, ready to be 
drawn upon as the everlasting “ treasure of the Church,” for 
the free discharge of guilty debts and the release of divine 
obligations ? And in what respect does this differ from the 
Roman Catholic doctrine, — except that the treasure is at the 
discretion of no chartered sacerdotal company, but is open on 
more popular and looser terms ? 

Moral relations, by their very nature, exclude all vicari¬ 
ous agency; you cannot fall, you cannot recover, by deputy: 
the ill that haunts you is the insult you have put on the divine 
spirit in your heart, and it is as if you were alone with God. 
An interposing medium can as little divert the retribution, as 
it can intercept the complacency of the Infinite and Holy 
Mind. What more fearful charge could you bring against 
any government, than to say that its penalties may be bought 
off? A judge who accepts the voluntary sufferings of inno- 


476 


sin: what it is, what it is not. 


cence in acquittance of the liabilities of guilt, shocks every 
sentiment of justice, and does that which the w’orst judicial 
caprice would never dare to imitate. A law that does not 
care whether the right persons feel its retribution, provided it 
gets an equivalent suffering elsewhere, is an affront to the 
most elementary notions of right. And an offender who can 
welcome his escape by such device, permits his moral percep¬ 
tions to be blinded by personal gratitude, and is content to 
profit by a transaction which it would fill him with remorse 
to repeat upon his own children. 

A Mediator may do much indeed to reconcile my alienated 
mind to God. He may personally rise before me with a pu¬ 
rity and greatness so unique as to give me faith in diviner 
things than I had known before, and by his higher image turn 
my eye towards the Highest of all. He may show me how, 
in the sublimest natures, sanctity and tenderness ever blend, 
and so touch the springs of inward reverence that, in my re¬ 
turning sympathy with goodness, all abject and deterring fears 
are swept away. He may direct upon me, from the hall of 
trial or the cross of self-sacrifice, the loving look that pros¬ 
trates the impulses of passion and the power of self, and awak¬ 
ens the repentant enthusiasm of nobler affections. He may 
renew my future; but he cannot change my past. He may 
sprinkle my immediate soul with the wave of regeneration ; 
but he cannot drown the deeds that are gone. From present 
sinfulness he may recover me; but the perpetrated sins — 
though he be God himself in power, unless he be other than 
God in holiness — he cannot redeem. These have become 
realized facts; and none can cut off the entail of their conse¬ 
quences : whatever the Divine Law has avowedly annexed to 
them will develop itself from them with infallible certainty. 
The outward sufferings by which God has stamped into the 
nature of things his disapprobation of sin, and made it griev¬ 
ous here and hereafter, stand irrevocably fast, clinging to 
guilt as shadow to body, as effect to cause. This debt of nat¬ 
ural penalty is one which must be paid to the utmost farthing; 
by penitent and impenitent, by the reconciled and the unrec- 


sin: what it is, what it is not. 477 

onciled alike: miracle cannot cancel, nor mediator discharge 
it. In this sense, — of rescue from the penal laws of God, — 
I know of no remission of sins; nor would Christians have 
retained so heathenish a notion, had they not frightfully ex¬ 
aggerated, in the first instance, the retributions of God by 
making them an eternal vengeance; and so created a neces¬ 
sity for again rescinding the fierce enactments of their fancy, 
that hope and return might not be quite shut out. It is only 
in man, however, and not in God, thus to do and undo. Iiis 
word, whether of warning or of promise, is Yea and Amen; 
and his great realities will march serenely on, and, heedless of 
our passionate deprecations and fictitious triumphs, rebuke 
our unbelief of their veracity. 

But while the past can never be as though it were not, the 
present may lie in the shelter of reconciliation, and the future 
in the light of boundless hope. The outer burden we have 
incurred we may still have to bear; but once brought by 
Divine conversion to an inner sympathy with God, and see¬ 
ing by his light rather than our own, we can suffer our 
wounds with a patient shame, and scarcely feel their anguish 
more. The averted face of the Infinite has turned round up¬ 
on us again; and the pure eyes look into us with a mild and 
loving gaze, which we can meet with answering glance, and 
feel that we are at one with the universe and reconciled with 
God. 


PEACE IN DIVISION: THE DUTIES OF CHRIS¬ 
TIANS IN AN AGE OF CONTROVERSY. 


“ Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth ? I tell you, nay, but 
rather division.” — Luke xii. 51. 

Such was the account which the Saviour himself gave of 
a religion whose promise was hailed by angels as an occasion, 
not only of “ glory to God in the highest,” but of “ peace on 
earth, and good-will to men.” The contradiction between the 
two passages is so obviously merely of a verbal nature, that 
it can perplex only the blind interpreter who penetrates no 
further than the letter of the sacred volume. I should only 
be giving utterance to your own spontaneous reflections, my 
friends, were I to tell you that my text speaks, not of the de¬ 
sign, but of the consequence, of the dissemination of the Gos¬ 
pel; and that it indicates no more than a prophetic knowledge 
on the part of Christ of the diversities of sentiment and feel¬ 
ing which would spring from the diffusion of his religion. 
This prophetic knowledge, however, it does clearly indicate; 
and this is a fact of no mean importance. The unbeliever 
objects to Christianity, and the Roman Catholic to Protestant¬ 
ism, the endless catalogue of discordant opinions which have 
resulted from their prevalence; and to both we are furnished 
with one reply. This infinite diversity indicates no failure in 
our system; it is not an unexpected effect which startles and 
alarms us; it was foreseen by the Author of our religion, and 
announced by him as the necessary consequence of the genu¬ 
ine preaching of his Apostles. And though he had this evil 



PEACE IN DIVISION. 


479 


(if such it be) full in view, he did not retreat from the office 
he had assumed, nor feel it at variance with his deep and ten¬ 
der philanthropy, to implant among mankind a faith that 
should break up their united mass into a thousand repulsive 
groups. 

He must then have known that his Gospel would carry 
with it blessings which this seeming disadvantage would not 
cancel, — blessings far surpassing the evils of division, — a 
peace which no jarrings of controversy could disturb, — a good¬ 
will that could triumph over the alienations of party. Were 
it my object, it would be easy to show that the distribution of 
the Christian world into sects has achieved incalculably more 
good than it has inflicted injury; that the rudest conflicts of 
a militant theology are preferable to the hollow peace of uni¬ 
versal thraldom; that the fluctuating surface of human opin¬ 
ion, with all its restless lights, is a fairer object than its dark 
and leaden stagnation; that discussion multiplies the chances 
of truth, diffuses the thirst for knowledge, leads forth reason 
from the mist, converts prejudice into conviction, and gives to 
a dead faith a moral and operative power. It would be easy 
to show that our religion, especially since it has issued from the 
cloister into the light of day, has accomplished a vast amount 
of good, with which no controversy has been able to interfere; 
that it has imparted nobler sentiments of duty, given to con¬ 
science a more majestic voice, raised the depressed portions of 
society; that it has enabled moral refinement to keep pace 
with the intellectual advancement of mankind; that it has 
given modesty to the sublimest exercise of reason, by erecting 
towering and eternal truths beyond whose shadow reason can¬ 
not fly. It would be easy to anticipate the time when the be¬ 
nign principles of Christianity shall mellow down the rugged¬ 
ness of party feeling, and extract the lingering selfishness that 
poisons discussion with its bitterness; when the unrestricted 
and disinterested love of truth shall no longer be an empty 
fiction; when the differences between mind and mind will be 
but so many converging paths by which mankind, with one 
heart and one speed, hasten to the same goal of certainty. 



480 


PEACE IN DIVISION. 


But it is not my object to insist on the advantages of contro¬ 
versy, or to predict its future triumphs; but rather to warn 
against some of its dangers, and to suggest a few thoughts 
which may throw light on the duties of Christians in an age 
so controversial as ours. To me, reflecting on the principles 
of the Association at whose anniversary I speak, no topic 
seems more appropriate. Our grand uniting principle is, the 
rejection of all creeds and human formularies of faith, and a 
simple adherence to the sacred volume, as being “ able,” with¬ 
out comment or interpretation, “ to make wise unto salvation.” 
We think confessions enough have been tried, and been found 
wanting; that every such attempt to produce uniformity is ut¬ 
terly chimerical, and an impotent rebellion against the laws of 
the human mind. Believing then that unanimity is one of the 
weakest dreams of the visionary and the fanatic, we expect to 
see diversity of sentiment among Christians; we cannot be 
surprised, and ought not to be displeased, to see the religious 
world full of the activity of discussion. But since we agree 
to abandon mankind to their divergencies of opinion, it is pe¬ 
culiarly incumbent on us to consider what new moral aspect 
society assumes, when distributed into differing denominations, 
and what new duties arise in an age of doctrinal debate. 

I. It is the duty of Christians to remember how many are 
their points of union. 

Is our religion, my friends, a matter of the intellect only, — 
a mere mine of inexhaustible speculation ? I grant that it is 
in perfect unison with the dictates of enlightened reason, and 
that it administers the noblest stimulus and worthiest employ¬ 
ment to the faculties of the mind. But are not its ultimate 
dealings with the affections ? Does it not present to us new 
objects of love, new scenes of hope, a new system of desires ? 
Does it not unlock the springs of human feeling, and pour the 
full tide of emotion upon the soul ? What else can so melt in 
penitence, so solemnize with awe, so prostrate in fear, so en¬ 
kindle with joy ? What else can impart such majestic power 
to human will to trample in the dust peril and anguish and 


PEACE IN DIVISION. 


481 


temptation, to conquer the solicitations of self-love, and pursue 
with meek inflexibility deserted and solitary ways of duty? 
For the greatest triumphs of our faith we must go where it 
is matched with the passions of the heart, the impulses of un¬ 
regulated nature, and see how it prunes their exuberance, 
enriches their sterility, purifies their pollutions, expands their 
littleness, refines their ruggedness. Now these influences are 
common to every form of Christianity; its appeals to the af¬ 
fections are not uttered in the vocabulary of sectarianism, but 
in the universal language of the human heart. Some may 
prefer to deck the form of our religion in the gorgeous colors 
of an imposing ritual; some may throw round it the ample 
folds of mystery; others may love rather the grace of its prim¬ 
itive simplicity; but beneath all these varieties the same living 
figure breathes, the same radiant features smile. Where is the 
system of Christianity that does not present to our affections 
an Infinite Being, who has shadowed forth his invisible glories 
in the splendors of the universe, who rolls the silent wheels of 
time, whose presence, felt in other worlds, is secretly shed 
around each human home, who traces the tear of grief and 
lights up the smile of peace, who has an eye on every heart, 
and carries on his parental discipline in scenes beyond our vis¬ 
ion and without an end ? Where is the system of Christiani¬ 
ty which does not lead us to the Saviour as the image of the 
invisible God, as the bright reflection of his character, and the 
noblest assurance of his love, — which does not trace to Jesus 
innumerable moral blessings, and call us to reverence him for 
guidance amid the intricacies of duty, for light in the chamber 
of grief, for power of endurance amid the struggles of suffer¬ 
ing nature, and prospects of attractive grandeur beyond the 
grave ? Where is the system of Christianity which does not 
cast upon this state the shadow of an eternal tribunal, — which 
does not associate with sin the horrors of the outer darkness, 
and impart an infinite value to every pure tendency of the 
soul, by inviting virtue to a never-ending progression replete 
with ineffable joy ? What Christian has not enshrined in his 
memory and his admiration the most beautiful and touching 
41 




482 


PEACE IN DIVISION. 


portions of the volume of our faith? Is there a Christian 
parent that can read the invitation of the benevolent Jesus, 
“ Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not,” 
without a heart of love to the Heavenly Teacher, without a pu¬ 
rified conception of that kingdom which infantine docility alone 
can enter, without an uplifting of prayer that no rude world 
may ever brush from the mind of his child the morning dews 
of his innocence? Is there a Christian sister that has not 
blessed the Divine Teacher, who, himself touched by the sor¬ 
rows that he quelled, restored the lost Lazarus to his weeping 
and defenceless home ? Is there a Christian mother who has 
not lingered with the bereaved Mary around the cross, won¬ 
dered at her awful sorrows, and thought how in the watches 
of the night memory would bring back upon her ear that last 
appeal, “ Woman, behold thy son”? The tears which flow at 
passages like these, the admiration with which they burden the 
heart, the images of moral loveliness with which they fill the 
imagination, are not the exclusive possession of any sect; they 
are the unrestricted boon of God to the human soul. In pri¬ 
vate, then, we all ponder the same book, gather from it the 
same refreshing influence, the same impressions of duty, the 
same impulses to prayer. And on our Christian Sabbath, 
while we tread the threshold of differing temples, are they not 
all dedicated to Him “ who dwelleth not in temples made with 
hands,” and regardeth not their trivial distinctions? While 
the worshipping multitudes utter a various language and ill- 
harmonizing thoughts, are they not addressing a Being to 
whom language is but a breath, and human thought but like 
an infant’s dream, and who looks only to that heart of love 
that animates them both ? It is an exhilarating thought, that 
though on that sacred day Christians may be separated by 
land and seas, gathered around myriads of sanctuaries, and 
speaking in a thousand tongues, their praises blend like kin¬ 
dred fires as they rise, and burst into the courts of God, one 
brilliant flame of incense from the universal shrine of the hu¬ 
man heart. 

These, my fellow-Christians, are thoughts which we should 


PEACE IN DIVISION. 


483 


cherish, to convince us how much, amid all our diversities, we 
have in common; to show us that the best, the living portion 
of our faith, is others’ as well as our own; and to soften those 
strange animosities that embitter our weak tempers, and en¬ 
feeble the heavenly ties that encircle the whole family of God. 
If there be any truth in the remark of a philosopher, that the 
essence of friendship is to have the same desires and aversions, 
how much ground have all Christians for mutual love ! Wide¬ 
ly as their speculations may diverge, the great concern of all 
is with God, the Infinite Father; with Christ, the commis¬ 
sioned prophet, the merciful redeemer, the inspired teacher, 
the perfect model, the heavenly guide; with eternity, the seat 
of our deepest and most permanent interests, the receptacle of 
our lost friends, the grave of virtuous sorrow, the home of the 
tossed and faithful spirit. No one can live habitually under 
the influence of these grand and affecting objects, and turn 
from them to condescend to the littleness of a polemical tem¬ 
per. They will impart their own greatness to his soul, and 
give him that best of powers, — the power over himself. Such 
a one may use the pen of controversy without fear. . 

II. But I confess that the contemplation of these points of 
union would impart little peace to our minds, or serenity to 
our tempers, if at the same time we believed that the differ¬ 
ences of our faith would follow us into the eternal future, and 
determine our condition there. I therefore observe, in the 
second place, that, amid all our controversies, it is of moment 
that we should remember the moral innocence of mental error. 
This principle, my friends, seems to me to be intimately con¬ 
nected with our right of private judgment. We might claim 
for men the privilege of free investigation, and affix no tem¬ 
poral rewards or punishments to any system; yet this would 
be but a worthless boon, if we upheld over any creed the pe¬ 
nal menace of eternity. We should thus only transfer the 
bribe from men’s interests to their fears ; we should push our 
exclusion from earth, only to give it a vaster theatre in heav¬ 
en- As many Christians, not otherwise disposed to be narrow 


484 


PEACE IN DIVISION. 


in their spirit, have some lingering doubts respecting this pri¬ 
mary principle of Christian charity, suffer me to say a few 
words with a view to establish the perfect innocence of men¬ 
tal error. The exclusionist pests the burden of his argument 
on one text, which, unhappily for Christian love, has been left 
somewhat elliptical in its expression. “ He that believeth and 
is baptized, shall be saved; he that believeth not, shall be 
damned.” Believeth what? Transubstantiation, says the 
Catholic; miraculous conversion, says the Wesleyan; the 
vicarious atonement, replies the Calvinist; the Trinity, says 
the Athanasian Creed. Every one has an anathema for the 
opponent of his favorite tenet; and the still, small voice of 
charity is swept away by the conflicting winds of controversy, 
and dies unheard. Let us see whether our Heavenly Father 
will not permit us to open those gates of mercy which others 
have so sternly closed. 

It is not necessary for our present purpose to inquire what 
are the salvation and condemnation of which the passage in 
question speaks. It may be conceded without injury to our 
argument, that they have reference to the destinies of a future 
world. Every reader of Scripture will acknowledge that the 
unbelief which our Saviour menaces, is unbelief in his Gos¬ 
pel, as preached by his Apostles, and confirmed by visible mir¬ 
acles;— it is a rejection of Christianity. From this it would 
seem clear, that no form under which the religion of Christ is 
professed, however erroneous it may be, can be comprised 
within the sentence of condemnation. But the argument of 
the exclusionist is this: — My own system is, in my view, the 
only one that is identical with the Gospel; therefore I must 
believe that those who reject my system are exposed to the 
penalties annexed to the rejection of the Gospel. It is sur¬ 
prising that so many should fail to detect the fallacy of this 
reasoning. Compare the case which our Saviour is supposing 
with that of the man who, in preferring one profession of 
Christianity, rejects all others; and you will find that there 
are two most momentous points of distinction, — the motive of 
the rejecter is different, and the thing rejected is different. 


PEACE IN DIVISION. 


485 


What can be more obvious, than that our Saviour refers to 
the hearer’s intentional rejection of the Gospel, — a rejection 
of his own Christianity, not of his neighbor’s. When punish¬ 
ment is held forth as the consequence of any act, is it not al¬ 
ways implied that the act must be intentional ? Is it not an 
understood principle of every law, human and divine, that a 
deed of accident and inadvertence is exempted from the pen¬ 
alties which, were it designed, it would deserve? To con¬ 
demn for murder the man who through mistake should admin¬ 
ister a poisonous draught for a restorative, would be as just as 
to put the erring believer and the wilful unbeliever on the 
same level. To charge this enormous immorality on God, 
would be the height of impiety. Widely as the professing 
Christian may err, remote as his faith may be from the truth 
as it is in Jesus, his intent is to believe; he yields his assent, 
no less heartily than his wiser brother, to the evidence which 
God lias placed before him; he only mistakes what it is 
which that evidence proves; he reverences, no less than 
others, the authority which Jesus claims ; but he does not dis¬ 
cern all the truths which that authority establishes. Strange 
would it be, brethren, if God, who in all other cases look- 
eth at the heart, should in this look at the understanding 
only. 

But perhaps it will be urged that the same perversion of 
mind which Jesus condemns is displayed by the modern in¬ 
quirer, who does not discern in the Gospel the great essentials 
of Christianity; that his disbelief in them, in short, is not 
wholly involuntary. A few words to this objection. 

I admit that faith is a compound result of the will and the 
understanding; connected indeed most obviously with the lat¬ 
ter, but determined more remotely by causes having their seat 
in the former. In the process of investigation, the last step, 
of weighing arguments and making up the mind, is undoubt¬ 
edly involuntary. When the evidence is once placed before 
the inquirer, no energy of will can repel the conclusion which 
is forced upon the judgment. When, however, we perceive 
that the very same reasoning produces different results on dif- 
41* 



486 


PEACE IN DIVISION. 


ferent persons, that one man is forcibly impressed by an ar¬ 
gument which to another appears weak and worthless, it be¬ 
comes necessary to account for these varieties in the etfects of 
evidence. And there can be no doubt that the perception of 
truth is very materially influenced by the moral condition of 
the mind. How powerful are the arguments in favor of the 
Gospel derived from the moral beauty and symmetry of the 
system, from the originality and loftiness of our Saviour’s 
character, from the adaptation of his religion to the wants of 
the human mind under all its countless varieties! And yet 
this species of evidence will be wholly without effect on those 
whose minds are destitute of moral sensibility and refinement. 
Moreover, it is notorious that the sanguine are always apt to 
believe what they hope, the timid what they fear; and the 
hopes and fears of conscience will exert this influence on be¬ 
lief no less than any other. Prejudice which might be con¬ 
quered, indolence which ought to be shaken off, passions 
which blind and corrupt the judgment, uneasy conscience 
which alienates the desires from God, all these may exercise 
a powerful moral sway over the faith; and for the influence 
of these every man is certainly accountable. 

But at the same time there is no reason to doubt that God 
has created us with intellectual differences which are wholly 
involuntary, and which must tend to fix the determinations of 
the judgment. There are some men who, from their earliest 
years, seem incapable of admitting a truth without double the 
evidence with which others would be satisfied. Who then 
among us is to determine what mind is most correctly strung ? 
Is the man who admits a proposition on one degree of evi¬ 
dence to condemn his brother who requires two ? And is it 
credible that God will accept of none but him whom he has 
himself placed at the only true point in the gradation ? Im¬ 
possible ! As well might we say that his heaven is closed 
against the insane or the deformed. 

It appears then, my friends, that belief flows from causes 
partly moral, partly intellectual. But can any human eye, I 
ask, discern in what proportion they are mingled in any one’s 


PEACE IN DIVISION. 


487 


* 

faith ? Dare you say of your differing brother, that he differs 
from a prevailing depravity of heart, and not from constitu¬ 
tional causes ? If not, then is there no human tribunal to 
which opinion may be called. We are not forbidden to love 
any fellow-creature, however remote his views from ours. As 
we are unable to discover how far diversities of sentiment flow 
from the will, we are bound to treat them all as if they were 
entirely involuntary, and to leave to the Searcher of hearts 
the award of approbation or displeasure. 

Again, the faith rejected in the case which our Lord con¬ 
demns, is not the same that is renounced by the erring Chris¬ 
tian. What is the Christianity, the disbelief of which is pro¬ 
nounced by Jesus to be so dangerous? Is it the Christianity 
of Luther, of Calvin, of Arius, of Wesley ? No, but the 
Christianity of the Apostles, which they were “ to preach to 
every creature.” Now in this all professing Christians be¬ 
lieve ; and from it they derive those views which, when once 
severed from their origin and entering the province of human 
reason, so rapidly diverge from each other. It is in vain to 
urge that all these systems, contradictory as they are, cannot 
coincide with revelation; and that there must, therefore, be 
some that do not constitute Christianity. The Gospel itself, 
considered as a revelation, bears the same relation to all the 
rival creeds whose credit hangs on its authority; like the beam 
of the balance, which determines the scale neither way. Let 
me not be mistaken, my friends. I mean not to say that all v 
systems of Christian faith are equally true, or equally accord¬ 
ant with the sacred writings; but that their relative truth is 
undetermined by the authority of revelation, and dependent 
on the correctness of the reasoning by which they are deduced 
from Scripture. All begin with reverencing the Gospel; and 
this screens them from our Saviour’s condemnation. They 
then employ themselves in reasoning on the sacred writings 
that lie before them; and if they then separate from each 
other, it is through the same fallibility of mind which multi¬ 
plies opinions on other subjects, and for which assuredly God 
will bring no man into judgment. The various systems of 


488 


PEACE IN DIVISION. 


Christian faith are but the diverging streams which flow from 
the fountain of living waters: some may take a straighter, 
others a more devious way; some may receive a scantier, 
others a more copious admixture from a different source; some 
may roll over a purer, others over a fouler bed; but all con¬ 
tain the healing current which gushed from the smitten rock, 
and all, I doubt not, are bearing onwards to meet at last in the 
ocean of eternal rest. 

Why then, my brethren, must we be handling terrors which 
it is not ours to distribute, and sending forth into the dark 
these fearful guesses at judgment? Why must our feeble 
hand be playing with the lightning, and letting loose the hur¬ 
ricane ? Rather let us imitate God. Does he brand the her¬ 
etic with his curse ? Does he pour the elements in fury 
around his dwelling ? Does he set a mark on him, that any 
one finding him may slay him? See, the sunshine still smiles 
upon his roof; the shower still refreshes his field ; the chari¬ 
ties and hopes of life are still poured upon his heart. And 
cannot we cheer with our human love the creature whom our 
Father disdaineth not to bless ? Are we so sinless as to stand 
apart in our holiness from the being with whom the Majesty 
of heaven can condescend to dwell, w'hom Infinite Purity stoops 
to cherish ? At least let us wait for the disclosure of those 
secret counsels which we dare to scan. It will be time 
enough to hate when God condemns, to shun when God driv- 
eth away. Be assured, my brethren, no soul ever perished 
for too much charity. “Be ye therefore perfect, as your 
Father in heaven is perfect.” 

III. It is the duty of every Christian in an age of contro¬ 
versy to make an open, undisguised statement of his opinions, 
and of the evidence which satisfies him of their truth. How 
seldom do you see that union of courage and charity wdiich 
the spirit of the Gospel should impart! Here you find one 
who discovers nothing in the religion of his brethren but 
errors to controvert; who cannot perceive any Christianity 
beyond the peculiarities of his own creed, and thinks that all 


PEACE IN DIVISION. 


489 


the evils of society are to be traced to the opinions of which 
he has discerned the fallacy. There, on the other hand, is one 
who, without perceiving the difference between discussion and 
wrangling, entertains a foolish dread of all controversy, and, 
as if the mutual good-will of mankind depended on their uni¬ 
formity of faith, suppresses his own views, and melts down 
the distinctions which separate them from the views of others. 
The enlightened Christian will acknowledge that both these 
are in the extreme. Against the exclusive spirit of the for¬ 
mer the preceding part of this discourse may be a sufficient 
remonstrance ; and I will conclude with a few remarks in ref¬ 
erence to the latter. It must be admitted that the fear of 
making an open profession of faith is a not unnatural fruit of 
the despotism with which society persecutes those who deviate 
from its established modes of thinking. A vast machinery of 
refined intimidation is prepared, to awe down every rising 
spirit that seeks to emerge from the thraldom of authorized 
custom into the glorious liberty of the sons of God. The 
charge of singularity, the smile of wonder, the sneer of aris- 
tocratical derision, the cold recoil of suspicion, and the open 
upbraidings of bigotry, are the keen weapons by which the 
world hastens to assault the conscientious openness which it 
ought to hail and venerate. Assailed by so many enemies, it 
is little wonder that the weak and timid should fall into that 
“ fear of man which bringeth a snare ” ; and that this should 
often lead them to act where they should keep aloof, and to 
be passive where they should act; to speak when they should 
be silent, and oftener to be silent when they should speak; to 
think within the barriers of established rules, or, when more 
convenient, not to think at all. But however natural may be 
the origin of this accommodating flexibility in the intolerance 
of society, it receives no justification hence; it is utterly in¬ 
compatible with that Christian simplicity which is ever the 
same to men and to God, which unfolds the character to the 
view in harmonious proportion, and would scorn to appear 
other than it is. It can exist only in the mind that loves the 
praise of men more than the praise of God. 


490 


PEACE IN DIVISION. 


I cannot leave this concluding part of my subject, without 
remembering that I am animadverting on a fault which has 
been peculiarly charged on my own sacred profession. The 
ministers of the Gospel, it has been said, the very men who 
should live under the constant eye of God, have ever afforded 
the most signal examples of the fear of man. My brethren, 
I confess it with shame: and it is a truth to which I can 
never revert without feelings of indignant sorrow. Happily 
there have been many noble exceptions, and in this place it 
is not difficult to bring many before the view. But the more 
I read the past records of the Church, and the more I study 
its secret history at the present day, the more painfully strong 
is my conviction that the ministers of the Gospel have been 
the most temporizing class of men. They are the appointed 
investigators of sacred truth, employed expressly for the pur¬ 
pose of opening the treasuries of divine wisdom and knowl¬ 
edge ; and yet from none has society gained fewer accessions 
of truth and light. Though stationed by their office between 
heaven and earth, they have gathered upon their souls more 
influences from below than from above ; though ordained to 
declare the whole counsel of God, they have more often 
studied the taste than the wants of their hearers; though en¬ 
circled in the discharge of their duties by an arm almighty to 
uphold, they too have felt afraid. My beloved friends, I know 
not how it appears to others, but to me it seems that in the 
whole Christian code there is not a duty of more clear and 
paramount obligation than the honest, simple avowal of Chris¬ 
tian truth. The first natural dictate of the mind is to speak 
what it thinks on any subject of deep interest and importance ; 
and I am persuaded that a man must sophisticate his con¬ 
science, must fill his judgment with forced reasoning and false 
excuses, before he can come to the conclusion that he had bet¬ 
ter keep truth to himself. Do you ask me, “ What is truth ? 
Amid the conflicting sentiments of mankind, how is it possi¬ 
ble with confidence to take up any as exclusively just?” I 
answer, every man’s own convictions to him are truth, to him 
are Christianity; and that to conceal them is to act the part 


PEACE IN DIVISION. 


491 


of the wicked and slothful servant who buried his master’s 
talent in the earth. It signifies not that men may obtain ac¬ 
ceptance with God without thinking as you think; God for¬ 
bid that I should for a moment doubt that! But do you be¬ 
lieve that truth is better for man than error ? Do you believe 
that they are not both alike to his mental and moral condi¬ 
tion ? If so, it is selfishness, it is sinful exclusion, to wrap 
yourself up in the solitary enjoyment of your own convictions. 
For my part, I see nothing but hypocrisy in the elaborate at¬ 
tempts which are sometimes put forth, to make opinions look 
like popular creeds, by slurring over grand points of distinc¬ 
tion, by pushing forward apparent resemblances, by a dexter¬ 
ous use of ambiguous phrases, and other arts equally worthy 
of a Christian’s scorn. Indeed, my fellow-Christians, we 
ought never to be content till this great principle has been 
established,— that, in obeying the noble law of Christian open¬ 
ness and sincerity, it is not .the business of the human being 
to calculate consequences at all; that temporal expediency 
must in no degree enter into the consideration. God is the 
author of truth, and he will take care of its consequences; 
and I am well satisfied that, let appearances be what they 
may, honesty will bring after it nothing but good. Even sup¬ 
pose that we should be found to be in error: then, the sooner 
it is exposed the better; and nothing is so likely to lead to 
its exposure as the undisguised publication of its evidence. 
“ Opinion in good men,” it has been beautifully remarked, “ is 
but knowledge in the making ”; and it is by sifting the grounds 
on which opinions rest, by bringing them into close compari¬ 
son, and setting many minds to work upon them, that truth is 
at length elicited; and he is no enlightened lover of truth, 
who is an enemy to the avowal of opinion. It is to be la¬ 
mented that the world lias been so successful in circulating 
the feeling, even among the well-meaning of mankind, that 
there can be anything to be ashamed of in opinion ; for hence 
has arisen an association of fear, and almost of conscious guilt, 
•with one of the noblest and first duties of the mind, the duty 
of thinking for itself. Let the inquirer and the teacher keep 


492 


PEACE IN DIVISION. 


their eye steadily fixed upon the Scriptures, make it their 
single object to know and to communicate what they contain; 
let them utterly forget that there are any inspectors of their 
conduct, any listeners to their words, except God and their 
own conscience; and I am satisfied that truth and charity will 
spread together, and more union be produced among the now 
widely dissevered portions of the Christian world, than any 
timid mediators, striving to be all things to all men, will ever 
be able to effect. The alarmed reconciler of inconsistencies 
may seem for a while to be successful; he may keep together 
in temporary harmony those dissimilar elements which more 
fearless spirits might separate; he may persuade men that 
they agree when they are wide as the poles asunder; 
he may surround himself by numbers, and multiply the di¬ 
rections in which his immediate influence extends. On the 
other hand, the reformer who cannot conceal, and who dare 
not pretend, who interprets most strictly the law of Christian 
simplicity, may lose many supporters who ought to stand by 
him in the hour of trial; he may be looked on with suspicion 
and avoided as dangerous ; he may be the centre at which a 
thousand weapons are directed; he may seem to have been 
imprudent and premature, and to have baffled his own cause 
by his indiscreet openness; he may go down to the evening 
termination of his labors, accompanied only by a faithful few, 
and cheered by no multitude of approving voices. But wait 
till a generation has passed away, and then come and look 
into the field occupied by these two laborers. Then you will 
find it proved that numbers are not always strength; when 
gathered together by the feeble bond of private influence, 
they are scattered when that influence is withdrawn. The 
timid man has left no permanent trace behind him; he has 
inspired no courage, provided no security for the future, and 
the grass has grown over the road that leads to his temple. 
But the man who has not feared to tell the whole truth is 
remembered and appealed to by succeeding generations; his 
name, pronounced in his lifetime with reproach, becomes a 
familiar term of encouragement; his thoughts, his spirit, long 


— 


PEACE IN DIVISION* 


493 


survive him, gather together new and more powerful advo¬ 
cates, and are associated with the records of imperishable 
truth. 

Finally, the great evil of this disposition is, that it con¬ 
strains the natural action of the mind, and produces a weak 
vacillation of character which paralyzes every virtuous en¬ 
ergy. The grand secret of human power, my friends, is sin¬ 
gleness of purpose; before it, perils, opposition, and difficulty 
melt away, and open out a certain pathway to success. But 
alas! brethren, our Christianity has not taken from us the 
spirit of fear, and given us in its place the spirit of power, 
and of love, and of a sound mind. We still put duty to the 
vote. We shrink from being singular, even in excellence 
forgetting how many things are customs in heaven which 
are eccentricities on earth. We fix our eye, now on the 
tempting treasures below, then on the half-veiled glories 
above; we open our ears, now to the welcome tones of human 
praise, then to the accents of God’s approving voice; and in 
the vain attempt to reconcile opposing claims, we sacrifice our 
interest in both worlds. It is melancholy to think what a 
waste of human activity has been occasioned by this weakness; 
how many purposes which, if concentrated, might have left 
deep traces of good, have been applied in opposite directions ; 
how many well-meaning men have laid a benumbing hand of 
timidity on their own good deeds, and passed through life 
without leaving one permanent impression of their character 
on society. It is not want of an ample sphere, it is not pover¬ 
ty of means, it is not mediocrity of talent, that makes most 
men so inefficient in the world; it is a want of singleness of 
aim. Let them keep a steady eye fixed on the great ends of 
existence; let them bear straight onwards, never stepping 
aside to consult the deceitful oracle of human opinion; let 
them heed no spectators save that heavenly cloud of witness¬ 
es that stand gazing from above; let them go forth into the 
struggles of life armed with the assurance, “ Fear not, for I 
am with you ”; — and each man will be equal to a thousand; 
all will give way before him; lie* will scatter renovating princi- 
42 




494 


PEACE IN DIVISION. 


pies of moral health; he will draw forth from a multitude of 
other minds a mighty mass of kindred and once latent energy; 
and, having imparted to others ennobled conceptions of the 
purposes of life, will enter the unfolded gates of immortality, 
breathing already its spirit of sublimity and joy. Brethren, 
“ how long shall we halt between two opinions ? ” 


THE END. 



































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